Alien Acheron
by Ratboy1664
Summary: The terrible truth of the fate of the colonists of LV-426. Set between the films of Alien and Aliens. Finished.
1. Chapter 1

**DATE: 10 JUNE, 2179. TIME- 09:45**

The hum of the dropship turned into a metallic groan as it hit the atmosphere of LV-426. Capt. Demian Brackett kept his boots flat on the floor and held onto the harness straps that kept him locked into his seat. The vessel slewed wickedly from side to side for several seconds before straightening out, and then it bounced like a speedboat skipping across high seas.

Alarms began to sound, red lights blinking all over the cockpit up front.

'What've we hit?' he shouted to the pilot.

The woman didn't turn around, too focused on keeping them on course.

'Just the atmosphere,' she yelled back over the din. 'Acheron's never smooth sailing.' She slapped a couple of buttons and the alarms died, though the lights continued to blink in distress.

Brackett gritted his teeth as the dropship filled with the noise of atmospheric debris plunking and scraping the hull. There seemed to be a lot of it.

'Haven't they been terraforming here for fifteen years?' he called, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the debris peppering the ship.

'More,' the pilot shouted. 'You should've seen what it was like trying to land here ten years ago, when I first got here.'

Fuck that, Brackett thought. He had a stomach like iron, but even he had begun to feel queasy. His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. He was a big man, at least six-three and quarter-back thick. His skin was as dark as the black jacket he wore and he had a full moustache that drooped over the corners of his mouth, a mean, signifying moustache that would have worked if only there had been the slightest trace of malice anywhere on his face.

Driven by unearthly meteorological forces, the winds of Acheron hammered unceasingly at the planet's barren surface. They were as old as the rocky globe itself. Without any oceans to compete with they would have scoured the landscape flat eons ago, had not the uneasy forces deep within the basaltic shell continually thrust up new mountains and plateaus. The winds of Acheron were at war with the planet that gave them life.

Heretofore there'd been nothing to interfere with their relentless flow. Nothing to interrupt their sand-filled storms, nothing to push against the gales instead of simply conceding mastery of the air to them—until humans had come to Acheron and claimed it for their own. Not as it was now, a landscape of tortured rock and dust dimly glimpsed through yellowish air, but as it would be once the atmosphere processors had done their work. First the atmosphere itself would be transformed, methane relinquishing its dominance to oxygen and nitrogen. Then the winds would be tamed, and the surface. The final result would be a benign climate whose offspring would take the form of snow and rain and growing things.

That would be the present's legacy to future generations. For now the inhabitants of Acheron ran the processors and struggled to make a dream come true, surviving on a ration of determination, humour, and oversize pay checks. They would not live long enough to see Acheron become a land of milk and honey. Only the Company would live long enough for that. The Company was immortal as none of them could ever be. Good old Weyland-Yutani mused Brackett, how did their advert go? Oh yeah, "Building better worlds". What a load of bullshit. The only thing Weyland-Yutani was interested in was building a better share price.

The colony itself was a cluster of bunker like metal and plasticrete structures joined together by conduits seemingly too fragile to withstand Acheron's winds. They were not as impressive to look upon as was the surrounding terrain with its wind-blasted rock formations and crumbling mountains, but they were almost as solid and a lot more homely. They kept the gales at bay, and the still-thin atmosphere, and protected those who worked within.

Beyond the colony complex rose the first of the atmosphere processors. Fusion-powered, it belched a steady storm of cleansed air back into the gaseous envelope that surrounded the planet. Particulate matter and dangerous gases were removed either by burning or by chemical breakdown; oxygen and nitrogen were thrown back into the dim sky. In with the bad air, out with the good. It was not a complicated process, but it was time-consuming and very expensive.

But how much is a world worth? And Acheron was not as bad as some that the Company had invested in. At least it possessed an existing atmosphere capable of modification. Much easier to fine-tune the composition of a world's air than to provide it from scratch. Acheron had weather and near normal gravity. A veritable paradise.

For a moment the barrage ceased. He started to relax, and then the ship plummeted abruptly, as if their controlled freefall had just become a suicide run. Cursing silently, he braced himself and twisted around to try to see through the cockpit to the outside.

'I'd rather not die on my first day of the job,' he called. 'Y'know, if it's no trouble for you.'

The pilot glanced back at him, a scowl on her face, and muttered something under her breath.

'What?'

They hit another air pocket and the drop threw him forward a second before the atmosphere thickened again, jerking him back so hard he slammed his head against the hull of the ship.

'Son of a—'

'Here you go, sir,' the pilot announced. The retro-rockets kicked in, lofted them up a dozen feet, and then began to lower them slowly. She guided the dropship gingerly forward and descended until it settled gently to the ground.

A hydraulic hiss came from the ship, as if it were exhaling right along with him, and Brackett released the catch on his restraints. The emergency lights shut down and the cabin brightened into a blue-white glow.

'Safe and sound' the pilot said. She disengaged the door locks and stood up from her seat. She stepped over to the starboard door and entered a code into a control pad. The door hissed open, and a short ramp slid out with a rattle, clunking onto the planetary surface.

'So what crime did you commit to get stuck out here at the ass-end of the universe?'

Brackett smiled. 'Now I can't go round revealing all my secrets that easily.'

The wind began to howl, blowing a scouring dust into the ship. He took a look outside and his smile faded. Acheron was a world of black and grey, save for the growing colony whose buildings were mere silhouettes in the obscuring storm. After several seconds the wind died down again, giving him a better view, but there wasn't much more to see. Box structures and in the distance the towering, ominous, hundred-and-fifty-foot high atmosphere processor, belching oxygen into the air.

'Home sweet home' he said to himself.

Two people awaited Brackett on the surface. They saluted as he came down the ramp and he returned the gesture, striding hurriedly toward them.

'Welcome to Acheron, Captain,' the first said. She was a tall woman with skin nearly as dark brown as Brackett's, and the pale line of an old scar across her left cheek. She gestured to the short, barrel-chested policeman beside her, a pale man with bright orange hair and thick goggles covering his eyes. 'I'm Julisa Paris. This is Deputy Coughlin—'

'Nice to meet you both,' Brackett replied cutting her off, 'and thanks for coming out to greet me, but let's get inside outta this wind.'

Coughlin took his duffel with one hand, lugging it with an ease that bespoke notable strength, and the three of them hurried toward the nearest door, which led into a two-story grey building whose windows were long horizontal slits, some covered by heavy metal weather shielding.

'Hate to break it to you Cap,' Paris said, gesturing around them, 'but this crap? This is nothin''. She led the way inside, stopped at the entrance to let them pass, and then closed the door behind them. The sound of the scouring wind died instantly and the door sealed with a hiss.

White lights flickered and grew brighter. Brackett looked around at the clean, wide corridor that went deep into the building. There were a lot of command posts where it would be almost impossible not to develop at least low-level claustrophobia. At least here there'd be room to move around, and a lot of people to get to know.

'Okay, let's do this right,' he said, shaking hands with Paris and Coughlin. 'Demian Brackett. Your new boss.'

'Paris'

'Coughlin, Dave Coughlin. Nice to meet you boss. Let me show you your new home.'

'Lead the way, please.' As Coughlin guided him deeper into the building, Paris began to rattle off what she apparently considered the amenities of Hadley's Hope, including a games room, vast, incomplete subterranean levels with plenty of room for running, and a cook who was—she claimed—a virtuoso when it came to Italian pastries.

The colony was only in its nascent stages. Someday it would be a sprawling hub, as Weyland-Yutani continued to promote expansion into this quadrant. Both the company and the government supported the scientific research that was already going on here, but eventually the real value of Hadley's Hope would be as a way station or port.

'So what are the locals like?' Asked Brackett.

'Oh, y'know, the usual. We've got our share of dickheads just like the rest of the universe.' Paris said.

'Like who?'

Paris didn't reply. Any trace of a smile vanished from her face. As she reached a door and keyed it open, she wore an expression that said she regretted having spoken.

As the three of them moved deeper inside the colony, they passed several people. Brackett heard laughter down a side corridor, and glanced over to see a pair of children doing cartwheels along the floor. That would take some getting used to—having kids around.

Ahead, a row of high windows looked in on the spacious command block, where operations personnel sat at workstations and studied display screens. In the middle of the room, a heavyset white man appeared to be dressing down a scraggly, bearded young guy who held a blueprint scroll in his hand.

'Administration,' Paris said. 'That's Al Simpson the Operations Manager, he's alright.'

Simpson's face turned red as he yelled at the young fellow. Brackett hoped his new boss wasn't going to be a petty jobsworth.

Paris caught Simpson's attention, and the man gestured to indicate that he'd be out in a moment.

A companionable silence fell among the three security officers as they waited in the corridor. Curious civilians smiled or nodded at the newly arrived Captain as they passed. Coughlin slid the duffel to the ground and leaned against the wall.

'Captain Brackett, good to meet you' Brackett turned to see Al Simpson lumbering toward them, arm outstretched. 'I've called a quick meeting in one of the research labs so you can meet the movers and shakers of this facility.'

'When?' Brackett asked.

'Now.' Smiled Simpson. 'Dave, would you do me a favour and take Captain Brackett's luggage to his quarters?'

'No problem chief.'

As they passed the command block and rounded a corner, Brackett studied him more closely. On the surface, the guy seemed like a hundred other low-level management monkeys he'd met, yet he wondered if Simpson was smarter than he looked.

A short way down the hall they paused at a door marked RESEARCH: NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE, and Simpson punched numbers into a keypad that admitted them.

Simpson made sure the door swung shut behind them and the lock engaged, then he set off for a white door a dozen feet along the hall.

Inside the white-doored room were ten or so young wide-eyed lab assistants in white coats and several older researchers in civilian clothes.

The lab coats clustered around the trio of older researchers, including a silver-haired Japanese man, a grim-eyed white guy with a wine-dark birthmark on his throat and jaw, and a slender sixtyish woman.

The only guy in the room who didn't look like a scientist stood a distance back from the table, a deep frown creasing his forehead. An air of disapproval hung over him, like a man waiting for his children to get tired at a playground so he can take them home.

'Captain Brackett, meet Doctors Mori, Reese, and Hidalgo, and their team of Brainiac's.'

The doctors nodded. Simpson gestured to the guy standing away from the table.

'And the miserable bastard in the corner there is Derrick Russell, who's in charge of our ongoing terraforming operations.'

'Captain,' Russell said, with a slight nod of respect to the new man.

Brackett approached the table for a proper round of handshakes.

'Welcome to Hadley's Hope, Captain' Dr Mori began.

'It's a pleasure to meet you all,' said Brackett, 'and please, call me Demain'

'That's an unusual name' said Dr Hidalgo, shaking his hand, 'does it have any special meaning? And please, call me Elena.'

'I don't know really, it's just always been my name.'

'I thought policemen were meant to be inquisitive?' The thin voice belonged to Dr Reese.

'Not too inquisitive I hope,' laughed Russell, 'I don't want you finding my stills!'

'Now I'm sure we'll all get along just fine,' said Simpson, taking over the conversation, 'but it's been a long day for you I imagine Captain, and these hyenas will take you to the cleaners given half a chance. Let's go have a chat in my office.'

'Appreciate it.' Brackett made his goodbyes and left with Simpson. 'Seem like a nice bunch.'

'Oh they are until you get them talking about dark matter or something like that, and then they turn into a pack of rabid dogs. This is me.'

Simpson led Brackett into a cramped room that was furnished in Spartan style, just a couple of metal chairs, a metal table with a computer on it and a very solid looking metal cabinet. On the wall behind Simpson's desk was a huge map of Acheron, which had been divided up into grid squares and had a number of multi coloured pins stuck into it. Brackett looked for any personal items that could shed some light onto the character of his new boss but there weren't any, not even a family photo.

As he moved behind the modest desk from his new security chief Simpson glanced up. 'Drink?'

'Err, no thanks'

'Oh go on, we so rarely have anything to drink to around here.' He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the cabinet from which he withdrew two plastic glasses and a bottle of rum. 'And besides, drinking rum before mid-day doesn't make you an alcoholic...'

'It makes you a pirate' finished Brackett as the two men chuckled. 'Odd choice of drink isn't it?'

'Well our ships may not have wooden masts and cloth sails anymore but I still consider myself a naval man, and as such certain traditions have to be upheld.'

'Oh alright then, I'm sure some part of my poor tortured body would like a drop of the strong stuff.'

'That's the spirit' Simpson sat down and poured two generous measures. 'Welcome to Hadley's Hope captain Brackett' and raised his glass. They touched glasses and downed their drinks. 'Now,' said Simpson pouring another shot of rum for each of them from the bottle on the table, 'what brings you to our little corner of the universe?'

'Well,' began Brackett relaxing back into his chair, 'would you believe me if I said I came looking for adventure?'

Simpson's laugh was loud and deep. 'About as much as if you told me I had won a billion credits and my next assignment was to the planet of the nymphomaniacs.' Simpson leaned forward intently as Brackett sipped his drink. 'So why are you really here?'

The security chief swirled the rum in his glass before looking up at Simpson. 'I'm not sure I understand,' he said finally.

Simpson sat back in his chair, his eyes cutting into his guest. 'C'mon, this is a schmuck's posting and you're no schmuck. So why are you really here?'

'Let's just say I needed to leave Earth for a while and leave it at that ok?'

'Listen to me, you piece of shit,' the superintendent informed his guest fraternally, 'you lie to me one more time and I'll cut you in fucking half.'

Simpson eased his glass aside, picked up a personnel file from on top of his desk and began to read it quietly. In the dead silence that ensued, the sound of the pages slowly turning seemed as loud and deliberate as a hammer slamming into an anvil.

'I'm not sure I understand,' Brackett said finally.

Simpson sat back in his chair, his eyes cutting into his guest. 'I've read your report from the justice department, long story short you were a rising star in the force, tipped for big things until you transferred into "resources". You then proceed to drop off the radar for seven years and then all of a sudden appear out here on the other side of the universe with the rank of Captain. Now I ask you again, why are you really here?' The superintendent gazed at him intently.

Brackett carefully set his empty cup down on the table. 'I see that it's time to be perfectly frank with you, sir.' Simpson leaned forward eagerly. The captain smiled apologetically. 'I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.'

There was a pause as Simpson's expression darkened. 'I'm glad you find this funny, Captain. I'm pleased you find it amusing. I wish I could say the same.'

Brackett rose and started for the door. Simpson's fingers unlocked and this time he smacked the table with a heavy fist.

'Sit down! I haven't dismissed you yet.'

Brackett replied without turning, struggling to keep himself under control. 'I was under the impression I was here at your invitation, not official order. Presently I think it might be better if I left. At the moment I find you very unpleasant to be around. If I remain I might say or do something regrettable.'

'You might?' Simpson affected mock dismay. 'Isn't that lovely. Consider this, Captain Brackett. Out here the company is everything, and as far as you are concerned I AM the company. So talk.'

'It's classified. And that's all you need to know.'

Simpson's gaze dropped to his hands and he spoke through clenched teeth. 'Fine, just remember whose rock this is. Now get out of my fucking office!'

Brackett turned and studied him more closely. On the surface, the guy seemed like a hundred other low-level management monkeys he'd met, yet he wondered if Simpson was smarter than he looked. He decided to play it safe for now, until he could find out a bit more about this man who was going to rule his life for him for the next year or so.


	2. Chapter 2

**Date: 11** **th** **June, 2179. Time- 05:40**

Deputy Coughlin was sat at his desk in the security sections small office reading a book on a hand held screen when he was surprised by the arrival of Captain Brackett.

'Mornin' Cap', Coughlin said checking his watch, 'bit early aren't you?'

Brackett walked over to the coffee machine whilst he talked. 'Body clocks still all screwed up from the hyper sleep, so I thought I'd come pick your brain if that's all right? Want one?' He said gesturing at the machine.

'Cheers Cap, white with two. My mugs the blue one'.

'So', Brackett said walking over to Coughlin's desk with the two steaming mugs, 'what's the word?'

'Not much to be honest Cap, except that you came in on the supply boat so we have to be extra vigilant that no-one breaks into the re-stocked food storage rooms and helps themselves to a free steak or two for the next couple of days'.

'Happen much?'

'Nah, not really', Coughlin took a sip of his coffee, 'we've got 159 people living on top of each other twenty four seven, hard to keep secrets under those conditions'.

'Anything else?'

'Well no, that's the point. We work and live on top of each other so you can't really do anything and expect to get away with it. Sure you get the odd drunk fight every now and then, but as long as they aren't too serious we let them slide.'

Brackett raised an eyebrow. 'You let it slide?'

'Err yeah,' Coughlin said panicking that he had made a bad impression on his new boss. 'We figured it was better to have them blow off a bit of steam rather than bottle it up and possibly end up killing someone.'

'Who is we?'

'Myself and Deputy Paris' Coughlin said, then sensing a way to cover his ass, 'actually it was mostly Paris' idea.'

'Sounds like a good idea to me' Brackett said as he finished his coffee and placed the empty mug on the desk. 'Being stuck out here in a place like this can do weird things to a man's mind.'

'Ain't that the truth. Look Cap, all we do out here is prevent petty theft, break up fights and most importantly protect the colony from any acts of sabotage or unrest. How we do it is up to us, but as far as the company is concerned as long as no-one blows anything up or starts a socialist uprising we're doing our job just fine.'

'Do you like your job son?' asked Brackett.

'Can't moan, both myself and Paris signed up to earn a bit of cash then have the company take us back to Earth with a promotion after our three year tour. What about you Cap?' Coughlin eyed Brackett. 'How does a forty something Captain wind up in the ass end of the universe with no family or friends? Err, if that isn't too personal a question, Sir' added the deputy realising he may have crossed a line.

Brackett smiled to ease the young man's worry. 'Let's just say it's necessary for the moment and leave it at that shall we? Right, show me how to work this bloody computer system.'

Coughlin smiled as he stood up. If the Captain hated computers he wasn't likely to be an overbearing officious jobsworth which relieved him mightily. Funny though, there was something about Brackett that made him seem like a real detective rather than a desk jockey. It was the eyes decided Coughlin, they sparkled with intelligence and on a deep space mining facility that was a rare commodity indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

**DATE: 19 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 18:57**

A thirty something woman with wild dark hair and a young blonde girl were sprawled on their apartment floor playing Kubix, a puzzle game they had fallen in love with the previous year. They were Anne Jorden and her daughter Newt. The tiles were colourful, and played musical notes when being connected, but Anne liked it best because of the mathematical element that went into configuring them.

Newt barely noticed that she was learning anything, just enjoying the competition. In the beginning she had rarely won a game, but in recent weeks Newt had improved so much that she routinely beat her mother, which gave the six year old great pleasure.

Anne's older and other child Tim had gone off to the rec room to meet his friend Aaron, a burly boy with curly black hair and a chip on his shoulder. Anne would have preferred that Tim make other friends, but there weren't many children her son's age at Hadley's Hope, so she resigned herself to hoping Tim would have a positive influence on Aaron, and not the other way around.

Newt placed a triangular tile bearing a fuchsia smiley face into the design she'd been constructing, and a pretty melody began to play, emanating from the chips themselves.

'Yes!' Newt said happily, clapping her hands. 'Gotcha!'

Anne laughed. 'So you did.'

The rattling of the door latch made them both look up.

'Daddy's home!' Said Russ Jorden, a rugged looking man who practically burst into the room, a grin on his face. He clapped his hands as he saw them. 'Hey, look at my girls. Newt, I hope you're beating Mom!'

Newt gave a matter-of-fact nod, eyebrows raised.

'Of course.'

'You're in a good mood,' Anne said with a smile.

Russ slammed the door, crossed the floor and knelt beside her. He took her hands and gazed into her eyes, and she remembered the same look in his eyes the day he had proposed to her.

'You're going to be in a good mood too,' he said.

Anne laughed softly. 'All right, how many drinks did you and Parvati have?'

'Three,' he said. 'No, four. Shots included. But it isn't alcohol fuelling my mood, sweetheart. It's the promise of money. Simpson came looking for me in the bar. First thing tomorrow morning, you and I are headed out!'

Newt uttered a happy ooh and clapped again, her father's excitement infectious. Anne felt it, too.

'Out where?'

Russ snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

'That, my love, is the big question, and the best part. We're not supposed to discuss it, but he's received instructions to send a survey team to some very specific coordinates.'

'Specific coordinates,' Anne repeated, a pleasurable tremor going through her. 'So this isn't random. This time we're actually—'

'Looking for something,' Russ interrupted, nodding rapidly. He jumped to his feet and started to pace, his thoughts already racing ahead to the next morning. 'They're not going to tell us what we're looking for, of course, but the company must expect us to find something out there.'

Russ and Anne were surveyors employed by the colony, but like half of the survey team, they moonlighted on the side as wildcatters—prospectors—searching sectors of the planetoid's surface for mineral deposits, meteor crash sites, and other things of interest to the company. The colony's Weyland-Yutani science team used prospectors to retrieve soil and mineral samples, and to map out sections of the planet. The excursions were often very dangerous.

'Native ruins,' Anne cried. 'It's got to be!'

'Or some kind of ancient settlement,' another voice chimed in.

Anne looked over to see Tim standing at the entrance to the hallway, smiling happily. The boy, who was the spitting image of his father, hadn't smiled all day and it lifted her spirits even further just to see it.

'Exactly.' Russ snapped his fingers again and pointed at Tim. 'Non-human settlement.'

'It's like a gift,' Anne said, but then a dark thought touched her. 'If we find something. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Russ. It might be that we go out there, and don't find anything at all.'

Russ nodded. 'Could be, could be.' But she could see the glint in his eyes—a glint she knew so well—full of hope and plans for the future—and she knew he had already begun to spend the money in his mind.

'I want to come!' Newt said, standing up, her expression adorably determined.

'Rebecca and I both want to come,' Tim confirmed.

'Absolutely not,' Anne said, climbing to her feet.

'You always let us come,' Newt said, crossing her arms. She turned to her father. 'Dad, tell her.'

'Well,' Russ said, 'we don't always, Newt. Only when it's not going to be more than a day.'

Anne gave him a wary glance.

'Russ…'

He grinned. 'Come on, Anne, they're excited. Tell you what, if we wake up tomorrow and the coordinates Simpson gives us are too far away, or if the weather looks ugly—'

'The weather's always ugly,' she said, every trace of happiness draining from her as she thought about it. 'I just don't think it's a good idea.'

'Mom, we'll be fine,' Tim said. 'Come on.'

'The storm has passed,' Russ argued. 'I checked on tomorrow's weather, and there's no indication of anything near that level of disturbance.'

'That can change in an instant,' she said.

'We'll monitor it.'

'The calmest atmospheric day on Acheron is still dangerous. The wind and the dust—'

'We've been out with you plenty of times,' Newt argued.

'Don't whine,' her mother chided her.

Russ cocked his head. 'Honey?'

Newt and Tim gazed at her expectantly. Anne knew she ought to say no, but their arguments weren't without merit. The storm had been an anomaly, and the atmosphere had returned to its ordinary level of violence—which they had all faced many times. Even the kids. And if she and Russ didn't take this job, it would go to Cale or one of the other wildcatters, and if they found anything truly valuable, she'd resent her own decision forever.

'Okay,' she said finally. 'If the storm casting program doesn't show any major atmospheric disturbance—not just tomorrow, but for the next few days—then the kids can come.'

'Yes!' Tim gave a triumphant fist pump.

Newt came over and wrapped an arm around Anne's waist, nodding her precocious approval.

Russ smiled at her across the room. It was a slow, sweet smile, with a look in his eyes suggesting that he knew what a great couple they were, and what a great family they made.

At that moment her anxiety passed, and Anne felt suffused by a wonderful contentment. Suddenly she couldn't wait for the next day to arrive.

The coming morning promised a new beginning.


	4. Chapter 4

**DATE: 21 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 08:12**

Al Simpson enjoyed mornings in the command block, despite the fact that "morning" was an elusive concept on Acheron. The constant swirl of volcanic ash and loose soil in the atmosphere blotted out any direct sunlight, but on a relatively calm day, morning took on a pleasant, twilight glow.

The colony buzzed with people hard at work. Outside the broad Plastik window—its storm shield raised —he could see the giant Daihatai six-wheeled crawlers moving about, emerging from underground garages and crossing the breadth of the growing colony. Simpson thought of them all as spiders, working together to construct a single web.

He turned away from the window and took a sip. After years on Acheron, the shit that passed for coffee up here had finally started to taste good to him. He watched the technicians at their consoles, rushing around, tapping data into computers, and it felt good, especially when he reminded himself that unlike the people of Hadley's Hope, this was just a job to him. The colonists had signed on more or less for life.

His gaze drifted purposefully toward Mina Osterman, the most recent hire. She'd arrived two months earlier as a replacement for the plant architect, Borstein, who'd gone to work on a new colony Weyland-Yutani was developing in another sector. Mina was young with ginger hair and dark eyes, and she held herself always in a sort of relaxed pose that made people feel comfortable around her. _What on earth had possessed her to apply for this posting he mused, smiling at his choice of words. What on Earth indeed._

He turned to head back to his console and saw his assistant operations manager, Brad Lydecker, rushing toward him. Lydecker was normally a tall, thin, dour man with a receding hairline, but today he seemed positively excited.

'Hey Al, you remember you sent some wildcatters out to the middle of nowhere, out past the Ilium range?'

Simpson grimaced. The Jordens.

And the morning had been going so well.

'Yeah, what?' he asked curtly.

'Well, the guy's on the horn from our mom-and-pop survey team,' Lydecker explained. 'Says he's on to something, and wants to know if his claim will be honoured.'

'Why wouldn't his claim be honoured?'

'Well because you sent him out to that particular middle of nowhere on company orders maybe, I dunno.'

'Christ,' Simpson said, putting some drama into it. 'Some honch in a cushy office on Earth says go look at a grid reference, we look. They don't say why, and I don't ask. I don't ask because it takes two weeks to get an answer out here, and the answer is always "Don't ask".'

'So what do I tell this guy?' Lydecker said.

Simpson glanced at his coffee, but it had lost its magic altogether.

'Tell him that as far as I'm concerned, if he finds something, it's his.'


	5. Chapter 5

**DATE: 21 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 11:09**

'Look at this fat, juicy, magnetic profile.' Russ Jorden tapped the small readout on his right. 'And it's ours. Lydecker says that Simpson said so, and we've got it recorded. They can't take that away from us now. Not even the Company can take it away from us.'

Russ felt alive. He gripped the crawler's steering wheel, and his heart raced as he hit the accelerator.

The vehicle roared across a shelf of furrowed rock, down a slant, and then blasted through the crest of a high drift of volcanic ash. With the dust eddying around them, it felt to him as if they were surging along the waves of a dead grey sea, with the Promised Land straight ahead.

In the back of the crawler, Newt and Tim bumped each other and bickered as siblings had done on journeys since time began. His children loved each other and played together daily, but they nipped at each other like growling, overgrown puppies.

'Do too! You go into places we can't fit' accused Timmy.

'So what? That's why I'm the best!' Replied Newt, indignant.

Frustrated, Anne spun to face them.

'Knock it off, you two. I catch either of you playing in the air ducts again, I'll tan your hides.'

'Mo-om,' Newt whined, 'all the kids play it.'

'Wait a minute, wait a minute…' Russ said cutting off her argument. 'Annie, look at this.'

All he could do was take his foot off of the crawler's accelerator and lean forward, staring out through the windscreen at the massive shape looming ahead of them in the veil of drifting ash.

At first glance, the gargantuan object rising out of the ground looked almost organic, as if it were the huge arms of a prone dead man, locked in advanced rigor mortis. As they got closer it was possible to make out the twin arches had been made out of a substance that resembled metallic glass. One was shorter than the other, and yet this failed to ruin the symmetry of the ship.

'Folks,' Russ said, 'we have scored big this time.'

'What is it Dad?' asked Newt, all sibling bickering completely forgotten, her attention focussed completely on the massive object outside.

'I'm not sure.'

'Shouldn't we call it in?' asked Anne.

'Let's wait until we know what to call it in as,' Russ suggested. 'See if we can't get a closer look at this thing.'

Russ felt his heart hammering in his chest as he pulled the crawler to a stop. They'd never seen anything like the object's horseshoe shape, or its strange construction, but it most certainly was a vessel. A star ship. Judging from the way the rocky terrain had been torn up, leaving great piles of debris clustered around it, he felt sure it had crash-landed here, digging up the stone and ash as it scarred the ground on impact.

'That's about as close we can get, should we take a look inside?' He said looking across at his wife.

The kids moved out of the way as Anne pulled on her heavy coat, helmet, and the goggles that would protect her eyes from the blowing grit. Russ shut down the engine and followed suit, all four of them keeping up a stream of excited chatter. They wore belts equipped with core samplers, flashlights, and short-range comms that would allow them to communicate without having to shout.

Hefting cameras and testing equipment, he and his wife climbed down out of the vehicle and dropped to the surface. A massive gust of wind buffeted against them and Russ stood to block Anne from the brunt of it.

Their breath clouded in the air. The temperature had dropped.

'You kids stay inside,' Anne called to them. 'I mean it! We'll be right back.'

Clicking on his helmet light, Russ set off toward the derelict object, trudging through dust and then climbing onto a rocky ledge that protruded from the ash. Anne caught up to him as he studied the shape and the weird texture of the ship.

From the looks of its condition it had been out here for ages—maybe even centuries. Whatever it had been once upon a time, now it was little more than a creaky old haunted house, silent and remote.

Anne took the lead, trudging down from the jutting stone, through drifts of ash, and up a cascade of rocks beside the hull. Russ ran his gloved hand over the surface, its texture rough and lined when stroked in one direction, but smooth when he slid his palm across it the other way.

'Last chance to go home' said Anne, not entirely joking, but Russ was already peering into a fissure in the side of the ship and she knew there was no turning back now.


	6. Chapter 6

**DATE: 21 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 12:56**

Newt sat in the driver's seat, hugging herself.

The crawler's lights had gone on as it grew darker outside. The wind had picked up and it blew against the vehicle hard enough to rattle the windows. Though the heat ran, Newt still felt the cold seeping in from outside, and she started to wonder how long the lights and the heat would work. Would the crawler run out of power? Her mom and dad wouldn't leave them here long enough for that to happen, would they?

Not on purpose, she thought.

For the first time, she grew truly worried.

The wind howled even harder as she glanced over at her brother, who had curled up in the passenger seat and fallen asleep at least half an hour before. She wanted to wake him, just so she wouldn't feel so alone, but he would only be nasty to her. Most of the time, Tim was a good big brother. They got along well and they played together and they laughed a lot, but when he was tired or nervous he could be short with her, even mean.

Newt didn't think she could handle him being unkind to her right now.

She sat staring out the window at the huge, curving spaceship. In the swirling dust and the gloom it was hard to get a clear view, but when there was a lull in the wind she could see it all right. The ship seemed quiet now, making it hard to imagine that anyone was alive inside it—walking around, having a Jorden family adventure.

She shifted in her seat, turning away from her view of the big, dark ship. It troubled her now just to think of it, silent and empty. She shifted again, and the wind whipped against the crawler so hard it felt like giant hands were giving the vehicle a shove.

She trembled and wetted her dry lips with her tongue. Tentatively, she reached out and nudged her brother. Tim grumbled and turned away, burrowing into the seat, trying to find a comfortable position.

"Tim," she whispered, shaking him a bit harder. "Timmy, wake up."

She hadn't called him Timmy since she was very little. He didn't like it, now that they were growing up, but at that moment she felt very small. Felt little again.

"Timmy," she said again, and he turned sleepily toward her, eyes opening.

"What?" he groaned.

"They've been gone a long time," she said.

For a second she thought he would snap at her, demand that she let him sleep. Then he sat up a bit straighter, and looked out through the windshield at the darkened landscape, listening to the wind. Nothing so far had scared her as much as the uncertainty she saw in her brother's eyes.

Tim looked afraid.

"It'll be okay" he said. "Dad knows what he's doing."

Suddenly the door beside her whipped open, crashing against the crawler. Newt screamed as the wind roared in and she twisted just as a dark shape lunged in at her. Shrieking, she pulled back from the shape, her heart about to explode. Then she saw the face and with a shock realized it was her mother, panicked and looking so wild that Newt continued to scream.

Tim's shouts joined with her own as their mom reached inside and grabbed the handheld radio that was tethered to the dash.

"Mayday! Mayday!" her mother called into the radio, shouting over the wind. "This is alpha kilo two four niner calling Hadley Control. Repeat! This is—"

Newt looked past her mother and saw that she wasn't alone, that her father was there too, but something was wrong with him. He lay sprawled on the ground outside the door and in the light from the crawler she could see there was something on his face. Some kind of disgusting thing that looked like a spider, its many legs like bony fingers, its body pulsing with hideous life.

Her screams turned to shrieks as her eyes went wide. She screamed again and again, her voice merging with the howling wind, so that it seemed as if all of Acheron screamed along with her.


	7. Chapter 7

**DATE: 22 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 21:01**

'Anne … Anne, can you hear me?' A hurricane of static replied, and he fine-tuned the bulky colony radio. 'Anne, this is Al. Acknowledge over.'

'Al. We hear you. Can you hear us? We're almost back.'

'What happened out there?' Another blast of static.

'Russ is hurt.' Anne sounded exhausted and angry. 'We need help getting him in. He's unconscious. He needs to get to medical ASAP.'

'Anne, the medical team are already waiting for you at the South lock, proceed there directly.'

'Roger that. ETA is five minutes.'

Al removed his finger from the transmit button and looked over to Lydecker. 'Right I'm going down there to find out what the hell is going on, you have the conn.'

He was waiting at the South lock with the medical team when the tractor's lights appeared through the wind and gloom. The engine had barely stopped when driver's door flew open as Anne jumped out and ran round to the passenger's side door with the medics. She was immediately followed by both Newt and Timmy who bolted for the light and safety of the complex as soon as their feet hit the ground, desperate to put some distance between themselves and that thing.

'What happened?' Simpson yelled as he jogged over to the tractor. Anne grabbed her husband's torso under the armpits, not worrying so much about the creature now. It hadn't moved a centimetre on the trek back to the colony and she didn't expect it would suddenly move itself now.

'Some kind of organism,' she told him, dragging Russ out of the cab and onto the floor.

'What the fuck?' said Dr Komisky as she, Simpson and the rest of the medical team took a step back on their first sight of the monster attached to Russ Jorden's face.

'I don't know how it happened or where it came from. It's attached itself to him. Never saw anything like it. It's not moving now, hasn't altered its position at all on the way back. We've got to get him to medical.'

Al stood there in dumb silence as the stretcher carrying Russ and the creature were carried past him and into the colony. Behind him he could hear the sound of children crying.


	8. Chapter 8

**DATE: 22 JUNE, 2179 TIME-21:18**

In the infirmary the medics gingerly placed Russ on the extended medical platform. A complex set of instruments and controls, different from any others found in the colony, decorated the wall behind the unconscious wildcatter's head. The table protruded from the wall, extending out from an opening about a metre square.

Except for a slow, steady pulsing, the creature showed no sign of life. No-one trusted it to remain that way.

Dr Komiskey touched several switches in sequence. The auto-doc hummed and the opening at the far end of the platform lit up. Then the platform slid silently into the wall as a glass plate descended, sealing Russ tightly inside. Everyone in the room breathed slightly easier now that there was a physical barrier between them and the creature. Lights flashed on within the wall, Russ' body clearly visible behind the glass. On a nearby console, a pair of monitors flickered to life. Dr Komiskey moved to study their readouts as Joel ushered everybody else out of the infirmary.

In the corridor outside medical Simpson could wait no longer. 'What happened out there?'

'Huh?' said Anne, her attention completely on her husband.

'What happened?' Simpson repeated.

'We went into the ship, there were no signs of life.' Anne told him, still watching the two medics working with the auto-doc inside.

'There must have been something! What about the ship's crew?'

'Nothing.'

Simpson grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. 'And Russ? What the fuck is that on his face?!'

'How the fuck should I know?' she screamed at him, finally breaking down. The tears poured out of her as she sobbed, fighting to get her ragged breathing back under control. Eventually she was able to talk. 'He went into some kind of cargo bay.' Her expression twisted. 'He was looking for anything valuable. Instead, he apparently found some kind of eggs. I told him not to touch them. Probably too late. Something happened down there, I couldn't see what was going on. When I found him that …that thing…, was on his face.'

'How the hell is he breathing? Or is he?'

'I don't fucking care, just get it off him!' she yelled into his face, releasing some of the anger that Simpson's tactless questions had built up in her.

Inside the lab Joel echoed the question. Dr Komiskey studied readouts. 'Physically, he appears to be doing fine. Not only is he alive, but also all his vital signs are steady. According to the auto doc he's in a coma, but internally he's normal. A damn sight healthier than he has any right to be. As to how he's breathing, I can't say yet, but his blood's thoroughly oxygenated.'

'But how?'

Dr Komiskey punched a trio of buttons. 'Well we know what's going on outside, time to take a look inside.'

A large screen cleared, focused. It displayed a colour X-ray image of Russ' head and upper torso. Finer resolution could show blood flowing steadily through his arteries and veins, lungs pulsing, heart beating. At the moment the onlookers were more interested in the internal schematic of the small rounded shape covering the wildcatter's face.

'I'm no biologist,' Dr Komiskey said softly, 'but I guarantee you that no-one has seen anything like this before.' She gazed in amazement at the intricate network of forms and tubes. 'I don't have a clue what half of it is, let alone does.'

'Incredible' was Joel's only comment.

'Look at the musculature in those fingers, that tail,' Dr Komiskey continued. 'It may look like a jellyfish but I bet it's as strong as an ox.'

It was clear to see what the creature was doing to Russ, if not why. The wildcatter's jaws had been forced apart and a long, flexible tube extended from the palm of the hand creature down his throat. It terminated at the end of his oesophagus. The tube was not moving, merely sitting there.

More than anything else, this part of the internal view made Joel feel sick.

'It's got something down his goddamn throat.' His hands clenching and unclenching with sudden anger. 'What the fuck's it doing to him?!'

'We don't know that it's fighting with him, or even harming him. According to the monitors he's fine, merely unable to react to us. That tube or whatever it is must be how it's supplying oxygen to him.' The chief medic adjusted a control, switched to a tighter view and finer resolution. The screen showed Russ' lungs working steadily, at a normal pace, and seemingly without effort despite the obstruction in his throat. Dr Komiskey switched back to the first view.

'It doesn't make sense.' Joel's voice sounded confused.

Dr Komiskey glanced at him. 'What doesn't?'

'It paralyzes him, puts him into a coma, and then works like mad to keep him alive.' He glanced up at the screen. 'I thought it would be, you know, well, feeding on him somehow. The posture and position it's in right now is typical of feeding. But as the instruments say, it's doing exactly the opposite. I can't figure it out. We've got to get it off him.'

Dr Komiskey looked doubtful. 'I don't know if that's really such a good idea.'

'Why not?' Joel eyed his boss questioningly.

'At the moment,' Dr Komiskey explained, ignoring the slight challenge in Joel's voice, 'the creature is keeping him alive. If we remove it we risk losing Russ.'

'We have to take that chance!' Joel suddenly became aware that his voice was raised. 'Sorry doctor'.

'I am not going to authorize anything young man until we have the slightest idea of what we are dealing with here. Our only option at the moment is to keep running tests and keep this…this…, parasite contained, understood?'

Joel couldn't look her in the eyes 'Yes doctor'

Dr Komiskey's voice softened 'I don't like leaving that thing on his face any more than you do' she paused until his eyes rose to meet hers. 'But as long as his vital signs remain stable I think it's our best option. Obviously if they start to deteriorate we will have to act. Now keep an eye on him, I'm going to have to break this news to Anne.'


	9. Chapter 9

**DATE: 23 JUNE, 2179 TIME-22:25**

Simpson walked into the small room next to the med lab that Dr Komiskey used as an office and squeezed his large form into a chair next to hers. She had a large file open in front of her and he could see various printouts which he couldn't even begin to make out.

'Anything new?'

'With Russ?' Dr Komiskey considered, marshalling her thoughts. 'Still the same. He's holding steady. No, better than that. He's holding strong. No changes for the worse.'

'What about the creature?'

Dr Komiskey sounded pleased with herself when she replied. 'Like I told you, I've been running tests. Since we can't do anything for Russ, I thought it sensible to try to learn as much as we can about the creature. You never know what seemingly insignificant discovery might become crucial information later.'

'I know that.' He shifted impatiently in his chair. 'What have you found out?'

'It's got an outer layer of what appears to be protein polysaccharides. At least, that's my best guess. What's more interesting than that is that it's constantly sloughing off cells within a secondary, internal dermis and replacing them with polarized organic silicates. The silicate layer demonstrates a unique, very dense molecular structure under the scope. The combination of the way those cells are aligned with what they're composed of adds up to something that defies all the rules of standard biology.'

'Anything else?'

'Not really, I still have no idea what it breathes, or even if it breathes the way we think of standard respiration. It does seem to be altering the atmosphere around it, perhaps absorbing whatever gases it requires through numerous surface pores. There's certainly nothing resembling a nostril. As a living chemical factory it surpasses in efficiency anything I've ever heard of. Some of its internal organs don't seem to function at all, while others are doing things I can't begin to guess at.'

She cocked an expectant eye at him. 'That enough for you?'

'Plenty. Sum it all up for me. Pretend I'm as dumb as I sometimes feel. What's it all mean? Where do we stand with it?'

'Well, it's got an interesting combination of elements and structure that make it a tough little son of a bitch.'

Suddenly Joel came bursting into the room, panic written large all over his young face.

'It's gone!' he blurted

'What's gone?'

'The creature! It's gone! I went to record the latest half hour test results, peered into the auto-doc and it was gone!

Komiskey and Simpson looked at each other for a split second and then on some unseen command both jumped up from the table and ran for the door.

Russ remained motionless inside the auto-doc. His chest rose and fell steadily. He seemed to be breathing normally and without effort despite the absence of the creature.

'The door is air-tight, it must still be in there.' Dr Komiskey said.

'There!' Shouted Simpson, 'under his right knee'

'What's it doing to him now?' Joel's voice was barely more than a whisper.

'I think its dead'. Dr Komiskey studied the creature as best as she could.

It certainly looked dead lying on its back with its fingers clenched tight, even its leathery skin seemed shrunken and dry.

She walked over to a large metal cabinet and selected a pair of forceps.

'Ok Joel open up the auto-doc, and be ready...you know…just in case.'

Joel nodded and pressed some keys on the machine. With a hiss the door slowly opened.

A gentle touch on the curled fingers failed to elicit any reaction, as did a less gentile poke to the body. Joel held out a tray. Using the forceps, she maneuvered the petrified creature onto it.

They moved to a nearby table. Dr Komiskey turned a bright light on it. The illumination intensified the ghastly pallor of the thing. She chose a small probe, pushed and prodded the unresisting form.

'Where's its mouth?' Asked a still wary Simpson.

'Must be this tube-like organ, up in here. The thing it had down his throat. But it never showed any sign of feeding.' Dr Komiskey used the probe to turn the corpse over on its back. She got a grip on the tube with the forceps and partly pulled it out of the palm. As she extracted more of the tube, it changed colour to match the rest of the body.

'It's hardening as soon as it contacts the air.' She moved the tiny form over to a scanner, slipped it underneath the lens, and adjusted controls. Numbers and words appeared on miniature screens when she depressed certain buttons.

'That's all,' she finally informed them. 'It's over. It's dead. No life signs whatever. We may not know much about it, but it's not so unusual that you can't determine whether it's alive or not'

Simpson shivered. 'Good. Let's get rid of it.'

Joel looked at him in disbelief. 'You're joking, of course. Very funny.'

He shook his head. 'Like hell I am.'

'But . . . this has to go back.' Dr Komiskey sounded almost excited. 'This is the first contact humanity has ever had with this species. All kinds of tests should be run on it. It requires the facilities of a completely equipped biology lab. I can only record the slightest details of construction and composition. I can't begin to guess at such critical things as its evolutionary history. We can't dump one of the greatest discoveries ever out with the garbage! We have to keep this specimen.'

When Simpson didn't respond, she continued. 'For one thing, if we can't pull Russ out of his coma, the medical team that treats him will need to have the creature that induced the condition. Throw it away and we might be throwing away the secret to reviving Russ.'

Simpson finally spoke. 'You're the medical officer. It's your department, your decision.'

'Then it's made.' Dr Komiskey looked at her acquisition. 'I'll seal it in a stasis tube. That'll arrest any possibility of revivification. We can handle it.'

Simpson gestured at the medical platform. 'What about Russ?'

Dr Komiskey turned to face the pallet. After a brief examination of the wildcatter, she activated several instruments on the medical console. The auto-doc made noises, and readouts began to appear.

'He's running a fever.'

'Bad?'

'No. Nothing his system can't handle. The machine will bring his temperature down. He's still unconscious.'

'Unconscious and a slight fever. Anything else?'

She studied readouts. 'Nothing that shows here. His vital signs continue strong.'

'Long-term prognosis?'

The medical officer looked hesitant.

'I just want your opinion. It's not going into the log and I certainly won't hold you to it.' His gaze travelled back down to Russ.

'I don't want to appear unduly optimistic,' Dr Komiskey said slowly, 'but based on his present condition and on what the monitors tell me, I'd say he may make it.'

Simpson grinned, nodded slowly. 'Good enough. Can't ask for more than that.'

Dr Komiskey shrugged. 'I wish I could do more for him, but as I said, I'm not trained for it. It's up to the auto-doc. Right now I'm getting back some mighty peculiar readings, but there's no precedent for the machine to attack from. All we can do is wait until it figures out what the creature did to him. Then it can prescribe and commence treatment.'

Handling the forceps carefully, she lifted the alien by two of its fingers and transferred it to a large, transparent vial. She touched a control set into the vial's stopper and sealed the vial shut.

Finally convinced that it could no longer threaten him, Simpson turned and headed for the infirmary exit. 'I don't know about the rest of you,' he said back over a shoulder, 'but I could do with a stiff drink.'

'Good idea.' Dr Komiskey glanced at Joel. 'You be okay in here by yourself?'

'You mean, alone with that?' He jerked a thumb in the direction of the sealed container, grinned. 'If anything develops or if Russ' condition shows hints of changing, I'll buzz you immediately.'

'Deal.' She looked back to the waiting Simpson. 'Let's go find Anne first and give her the good news' The infirmary door slid tightly shut behind them leaving the auto-doc to work on Russ, and Joel to work on the auto doc.


	10. Chapter 10

**DATE 23 JUNE, 2179 TIME- 22:56**

They didn't have to go far to find Anne, she was slumped against a wall in the corridor outside of the infirmary, but the appearance of Simpson and Komiskey brought her to her feet like an acrobat.

'How is he? What's happening?' she demanded of the doctor

'Calm down Anne, we have some good news. The creature is dead and has been removed and your husband, as far as we can tell, has nothing worse than a mild fever'

'Oh thank God' gasped Anne as she embraced Komiskey. 'So he's going to be OK?'

'We think so, yes' assured Dr Komiskey. The hug from Anne was a little too fierce and she glanced at Simpson for support.

'Now then Anne, why don't we all go to my office for a strong drink and a chat, I think we all need one after today' said Simpson, putting a comforting arm on her shoulder.

The physical contact broke Anne out of her hug, tears still streaming down her face 'what about Russ? I should be with him'

'He's still in the auto-doc and Joel is in there with him, and if anything changes he will let us know immediately. Now,' smiled Doctor Komiskey 'let's take advantage of Al's offer of a free drink as it will never happen again!'

Anne laughed at the cheap jibe, she was feeling much better now knowing that Russ was going to be fine and allowed herself to be gently escorted to the administrator's office where she knew she would have to begin recounting the awful events of the last 72 hours.


	11. Chapter 11

**DATE: 23** **RD** **JUNE, 2179 TIME- 23:42**

Nearly twenty-four hours after she and her family had returned to Hadley's Hope, Newt lay in bed, legs curled up beneath her. Mrs. Hernandez had come in the middle of the day to look after her and Tim, and had made them a vegetable stir-fry. She explained that their mother did not want them to leave the family quarters. Even at six, Newt understood that her mom didn't want her overhearing other people talking about what had happened to her dad, or about whatever they might have discovered out at that crashed spaceship. Another day, she would have been angry about being left out. But today she was too distracted by her fears for her father.

The night before, she'd had a terrible time getting to sleep. The memory of her own screams kept ringing in her head, and every time she closed her eyes, she saw the pulsing sacs on the body of the alien creature attached to her father's face. When she'd finally fallen asleep she had slept for ten straight hours without dreaming at all. Waking, she'd been relieved that she hadn't had any nightmares… and then she'd remembered the day before, and thought about her father in the medical lab. That was when she realized that the real nightmare had been waiting for her to wake up.

Throughout the day, she'd tried to read and tried to nap. She'd tried to eat, too, but could only manage little nibbles. Tim had been sketching, but when she'd asked him what he was drawing, he told her she didn't want to know. Didn't want to see. So she knew exactly what it was he'd been drawing—the same thing she saw when she closed her eyes. Mrs. Hernandez fussed over them, made sure they ate, but Newt didn't want to talk to anyone, so she retreated to her bedroom as soon as she'd cleared her dinner plate.

'Ssshhh,' she whispered, clutching her doll, Casey, to her chest. She kissed the doll's head. 'Daddy's going to be okay. Try not to be afraid.'

Newt had been giving Casey that advice all day, but her dolly didn't seem inclined to take it. She couldn't make the fear go away, and neither could Newt.

'Just be brave,' she whispered.

She exhaled and held Casey even more tightly. That seemed to work. Being brave wasn't the same as not being afraid. Her mom had told her that more than once. Being brave meant you faced your fears, and Newt silently promised herself she would do that, no matter what.

'You and me, Casey,' she said. 'We're gonna be brave.'

She frowned. Had she heard a sound, out in the family room? A thump, maybe. Or a knock. Her pulse quickened and she burrowed deeper under her covers. Then she remembered what she had just told Casey. For a moment she held her breath, then she threw back her covers. Holding onto Casey, she tiptoed to her bedroom door.

Before she could reach it, the door swung inward. Newt cried out and jumped back, clenching her right fist—ready to fight. Then Tim poked his head into her room. She hissed through her teeth and started toward him, figuring he deserved a punch in the nose just as much as any monster that might've come after her.

'Quiet,' Tim whispered, putting a finger to his lips to shush her.

He moved into her room, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

'Mrs. Hernandez fell asleep in her chair, and we don't want her waking up right now.'

Her hand unclenched. 'Why not?'

Tim looked uneasily toward her. 'We need to go, Rebecca.'

Newt frowned. 'What? Where are we—'

'Dad's awake.'

Her heart fluttered. 'He's awake? Are you sure? Is he all right?'

A shuffling footstep came from just outside her room and she looked past her brother, noticing for the first time that they weren't alone. Aaron stepped in behind Tim, looking serious and anxious, both at the same time. Newt held Casey down at her side. Aaron teased her about the doll almost every day, and she didn't know if she could handle it today. A year older than Tim and physically larger, Aaron usually acted younger.

'It's true,' Aaron said quietly. No teasing. Not even a glance at the doll.

'I want to see him for myself,' Tim said, studying his sister. 'But I didn't want to leave you here, not without telling you where I was going, and asking if you wanted to come along.'

Newt was confused at first, trying to figure out how they would get there without being discovered. Then she understood.

'Through the ducts?' she asked.

'Of course. We know which lab they're in,' Tim said. 'We've peeked in there before, when we've been playing Monster Maze.'

'I don't know—'

Tim rolled his eyes in frustration. 'Newt, are you coming or not?'

'But—'

'C'mon, Tim,' Aaron said, 'let's go without her.'

Newt sat on the edge of her bed, laying Casey on her pillow. Indecision paralyzed her.

'Mom said we weren't supposed to leave our quarters,' she reminded him.

Tim glared angrily at her. 'I don't care. Aaron heard his parents say that Dad's awake, and I'm gonna see for myself.'

'Let's go,' Aaron prodded, turning to leave.

Tim followed him. 'See you later, Rebecca.'

Newt watched him walk out, feeling frozen on the outside but frantic on the inside. She wanted to see her father, too, but their mother had told them to stay put, and she didn't want to make her mother angry. More than that, she was afraid of what they might see if they crawled through the ducts and spied on the medical lab where her father had been taken. What if he wasn't really awake? What if that thing on his face had hurt him, or scarred him? No way would their dad approve of them spying.

'Tim, don't leave me,' she said softly, not wanting to shout for fear of waking Mrs. Hernandez. Taking a deep breath, she stood up, turned, and pointed at Casey, who lay against the pillow.

'You stay right there and don't move,' she said. 'I'll be back.'

Slipping on her shoes, she darted silently from her room, glanced once at Mrs. Hernandez napping on the sofa, and then went out the door. She caught up with the boys around the corner, moving down a wide corridor.

'Hey, you guys, wait for me!' she called.

Tim glanced back at her and smiled a little, slowing down until she reached him.

'We're gonna get it if Mom catches us,' she said.

'Aw, quit your whining,' Aaron snapped.

Tim glared at him, and Newt felt a little better. Her brother didn't always come to her defence, but she hoped with Dad not around they would stick together more than ever before. Aaron could be nice, but mostly he didn't seem to like having a little girl tag along. Well, it's my father in there, Newt thought, so I don't care what you like. She didn't want to get into a fight with him, or to have Tim end up in a fight with his friend. But she had been through too much in the past two days to put up with him being a jerk.

They took a side corridor on the left that was mostly used by maintenance workers. There was a service elevator at the back, and halfway along the hall there was a big vent. Tim and Newt kept watch while Aaron jiggered off the grate, then they snuck in quickly, with Tim bringing up the rear. When they were all inside, he pulled the grate back into place. Enough light filtered through the vents and grates that they could see where they were going. They crawled quickly along the smooth, rectangular tube for several long minutes, turning this way and that, moving toward the science and medical labs. Usually they kept away from that part of the complex when they were playing—their parents had warned them to stick to the residential areas of the colony. But all of the children of Hadley's Hope had explored far and wide at some point or another. Still, when they came to a duct that angled downward into darkness, she realized this was a way she had never gone.

'Do we have to go down there?' she whispered.

'What are you, scared?' Aaron scowled, then turned to Tim. 'Maybe you oughta send your sister back, before she starts bawling or something.' Then he went feet-first down the sloping duct, moving carefully.

As soon as he was out of sight, Tim turned to his sister. 'You okay?' he asked. 'Look, if you want to go back—'

Newt went head-first without waiting for him to finish. She slid on her belly, dragging the toes of her shoes and using her hands to slow herself, but she still crashed into Aaron at the bottom. He yelped in protest, then clamped a hand over his mouth.

'Sorry,' she said, but she said it in a way—and with a smile—that made it clear she didn't mean it.

Tim came down behind them, but managed to stop himself in time. A dim light from ahead gave some grey illumination to the duct, and they quickly moved on. The metal felt cold to the touch, and the chill crept into Newt's bones. Another few minutes and three more turns, and then Aaron stopped at a vent illuminated by bright white light.

'Here we are,' he whispered. 'I told you I knew the way. Keep it quiet, now, or they'll hear us.'

They took a few seconds arranging themselves so that they could all see through the vent, the boys stretching out in either direction and Newt—the smallest of them—kneeling in the middle. One hand on the duct wall right above the vent, she bent to peer through the slats. At first she could only see her mother, the thinning blonde hair of Mr Simpson, a nice young nurse called Joel who would give her a lollipop whenever she was sick and a curly haired fortyish woman called Dr Komiskey who gave all of the colonists their annual check-ups. But then Newt shifted slightly, cocked her head to the left, and she could make out another person, sitting upright on an examining table, legs hanging over the edge. Suddenly Newt grinned, a huge weight lifting from her heart. It was her dad, looking awful silly in nothing but his underpants.

The wildcatter was sitting upright and his eyes were open and clear, functioning in proper concert with his brain. Those eyes turned to take in the knot of gaping onlookers.

'Russ?' Joel couldn't believe it. 'Are you all right?' He looks fine, he thought dazedly, as though nothing had ever happened.

'You want anything?' asked Anne, when he did not respond to Joel's query.

'Mouth's dry.' The wildcatter looked alert and fit, but puzzled for no particular reason, as though he were still trying to organize his thoughts. 'Can I have some water?'

Dr Komiskey moved quickly to a dispenser, drew a plastic cupful, and handed it to Russ. The wildcatter downed it in a single long swallow. She noted absently that muscular co-ordination seemed normal. The hand-to-mouth drinking movements had been performed instinctively, without forethought.

While enormously gratifying, the situation was ridiculous. There had to be something wrong with him.

'More,' was all Russ said, continuing to act like a man in complete control of himself. Anne found a large container, filled it brim full, and handed it to him. He downed the contents like a man who'd just spent ten years wandering a desert, then sagged back on the padded table, panting.

'How do you feel?' asked Simpson.

'Terrible. What happened to me?'

'You don't remember?' Dr Komiskey said.

Russ winced slightly, more from muscles cramping from disuse than anything else, and took a deep breath.

'I don't remember a thing. I can barely remember my name.'

'Just for the record . . . and the medical report,' asked Dr Komiskey, professionally, 'what is your name?'

'Jorden. Russ Jorden.'

'That's all you remember?'

'For the moment.' He let his gaze travel slowly over the assembly of anxious faces. 'I remember all of you, though I can't put names to you yet.'

'You will,' Dr Komiskey assured him confidently. 'You recall your own name and you remember faces. That's a good start. Also a sign that your loss of memory isn't absolute.'

'Do you hurt?' Unsurprisingly, it was Anne who asked the first sensitive question.

'All over. Feel like somebody's been beating me with a stick for about six years.' He sat up on the pallet again, swung his legs over the side, and smiled. 'God, am I hungry. How long was I out?'

Simpson continued to stare at the apparently unharmed man in disbelief. 'Just a day. You sure you don't have any recollection of what happened to you?'

'Nope. Not a thing.'

'What's the last thing you do remember honey?' Anne asked him.

'I don't know.'

'We were exploring a strange ship. Do you remember what happened there?'

Russ' forehead wrinkled as he tried to battle through the mists obscuring his memories. Real remembrances remained tantalizingly out of reach, realisation a painful, incomplete process.

'Just some horrible dream about smothering.' He broke off, grimaced, and then looked confused and a little frightened.

Anne leaned toward him. 'What is it . . . what's wrong?'

'No . . . I don't think . . .' He stopped in midsentence again. His expression was strained and he was grunting steadily.

'What's the matter then?' wondered a worried Joel.

'I don't know.' He made another twisted face, looking like a fighter who'd just taken a solid punch in the gut. 'I'm getting cramps . . . getting worse.'

Nervous faces watched the wildcatter's twist in pain and confusion. Abruptly, he let out a loud, deep-toned groan and clutched at the edge of the table with both hands. His knuckles paled and the tendons, stood out in his arms. His whole body was trembling uncontrollably, as if he were freezing, though it was pleasantly warm in the lab.

'Breathe deeply, work at it,' Dr Komiskey advised, when no one else offered any suggestions.

Newt bent closer to the vent. 'Tim, what's wrong with—'

Russ tried. The deep breath turned into a scream.

'Oh, God, it hurts so bad. It hurts. It hurts.' He stood unsteadily, still shaking, hands digging into the table as if afraid to let go. 'Ohhhh!'

'What is it?' Anne asked helplessly. 'What hurts? Something in . . . ?'

The look of agony that took over Russ' face at that moment cut off Anne's questioning more effectively than any shout. His eyes bugged and he let out a lingering, nerve-chilling shriek. It echoed around medical, sparing none of the onlookers, refusing to fade.

'Daddy?' Newt whispered, tears coming hot and fast now, burning her cheeks.

A red stain had appeared on Russ' torso. It spread rapidly, became a broad, uneven bloody smear across his lower chest. There followed the sound of tearing, ugly and intimate in the cramped room. His skin split open as a small head the size of a man's fist punched outward. It writhed and twisted like a snake's. The tiny skull was mostly all teeth, sharp and red-stained. Its skin was a pale, sickly white, darkened now by a crimson slime. It displayed no external organs, not even eyes. A nauseating odour, fetid and rank, reached the nostrils of the colonists.

There were screams from others besides Russ now, shouts of panic and terror as the onlookers reflexively stumbled away from the table. Convulsively, the toothed skull lunged outward. All of a sudden it seemed to fairly spurt from Russ' torso. The head and neck were attached to a thick, compact body covered in the same white flesh. Clawed arms and legs propelled it outward with unexpected speed. It landed messily on the floor, trailing pieces of Russ' insides. Fluid and blood formed an unclean wake behind it. Before anyone could regain their senses and act, the creature then darted off into a corner where it smashed through a small plastic grate and vanished into the guts of the colony.

Newt started screaming again. And this time she couldn't stop.


	12. Chapter 12

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE, 2179 TIME- 00:11**

In the small examination room where she usually had her annual physical, Anne sat on the floor with her children huddled on either side of her. They burrowed against her and she held them tightly, whispering to them that it would be all right now, though even six-year-old Newt had to know that was a lie. Their father was dead, cold and bloody and already turning blue in the lab only twenty feet down the hall, where Dr Reese had evicted Theodora Komiskey from her own med lab.

'Hey,' a gentle voice said.

Anne looked up to see Dr Komiskey standing in the open doorway. She'd been talking to several people, and arguing with Dr Mori, but this was the first time the doctor had come in to speak with her.

'Theodora,' she managed to say, and then her tears came.

She forced herself to cry quietly, and not to tremble too much, hoping to hide her tears from her children. Newt had fallen asleep against her, exhausted by grief, but Tim looked up at her face, his eyes red but his expression hard and grim. She hated seeing that look on his face—that look that said his world had broken in half, but he expected things to get even worse.

'Can I do anything for you?' the doctor asked.

'Have they found…it?'

'Not yet,' Dr Komiskey said. 'But they will. You know what, never mind,' she said. 'You shouldn't be hearing this. You should take the kids and go back to your place. I'll update you myself if we learn anything.'

She stopped and glanced at Tim, saw the way his mouth had tightened into a white line as he forced himself not to cry.

'I'm on my own,' whispered Anne 'and I'm going to keep these kids safe. That means I want to be where the investigation is taking place. I want to know what you know, when you know it.'

Anne hugged her children close, and looked up at Theodora, her eyes brokering no argument.

'What are they, Theodora?' she asked, not really expecting an answer. 'What the hell have we stumbled upon here? I mean, the company sent us out there, gave us specific coordinates and everything. Did they know what we would find?'

From the haunted look in the doctor's eyes, Anne knew she had been wondering the same thing.

'I wish I knew,' Dr Komiskey said. 'But even if we did—'

'What, it wouldn't help?' Anne snapped, disturbing Newt. 'If they know anything that we don't, I think it's time they clued us in. Don't you?'

The doctor exhaled.

'Whatever I learn, I'll share.'

The door to the clinic opened and Simpson, Lydecker and Brackett were all just about to squeeze in. Simpson cast a quick look at the other two men before speaking.

'We feel that, for the moment at least, it would be in the interest of the colony if the tragic events of the last 24 hours were kept as quiet as possible' Simpson held up a hand to cut off Anne's objection and carried on. 'We will continue to look for the creature but as quietly as possible to stop the spread of any panic which would cause far more damage. We feel that due to its small size it shouldn't present any real danger to anyone and that its first reaction will be flight not fight.'

Anne stood up, incredulous. 'You mean to cover this up'

'That is simply not true Anne' said Lydecker, 'its hard enough living here in the first place, without having to look twice into every dark corner just to be sure. This place would turn into a madhouse within hours.'

'One more thing.' Simpson said watching them closely. 'I take comfort in the daily routine here. So do you. There's a great deal of reassurance to be found in codified monotony. I'm not going to let it be broken. Systematic repetition of familiar tasks is the best and safest narcotic. I'm not going to allow the colonists to become agitated. Not by a creature, not by rumours. Not by any of you. Are we all clear on this?'

'Fine' Anne replied frostily, 'but you'd better find this damned thing and find it fast'.

Simpson nodded turned and left, the others filing out after him leaving Anne alone with what was left of her entire family.


	13. Chapter 13

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 07:11**

Jane Bracknall opened the door to her daughter Helen's bedroom and flicked on the lights. Instead of being greeted by the sleeping form of her eight year old child all she found was a bed which had clearly been slept in but was now definitely empty. The reason was immediately obvious, the metal grill to the air vent was lying next to the pillow on the bed. Confusion quickly turned into anger for Jane. How many times had she told her daughter to not play in the pipes and vents that criss-crossed the colony? In fact how did she get the grill off, as Jane's husband Chris had welded it in place after the last time she had been caught playing 'Monster Maze' or whatever it was the kid's called it?

She picked up the grill and turned it over in her hands. A big dent in the centre showed where someone had hit the grill with enough force to knock it free. Jane was sure there was no way Helen had enough strength to achieve such an effect and as she called for her husband the anger changed to a growing feeling of fear.

Closer inspection, now with an element of panic, revealed that none of Helen's clothes were missing, except the pyjamas she was wearing. This was definitely wrong.

'CHRIS?!' It was nearly a scream and brought her husband scurrying into the bedroom.


	14. Chapter 14

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 09:13**

Nolan Cale was not in a good mood. Not only had he been passed over for an expedition that promised a major find, and passed over for that useless bastard Russ Jorden of all people, but now he was down in the maintenance corridors underneath the main colony searching for some stupid kid who had probably broken her leg messing around in the goddam air ducts.

The call had gone out across the colony intercom just after breakfast, all non-essential personnel were to report to assistant operations manager Lydecker's office for a search and rescue party.

As he made his way towards another T junction, Cale surveyed the less than antiseptically clean walls of the empty corridor with distaste. Why was he even down here _? It's not even your stupid kid_ said the voice in his head. _There isn't even any reward, she could be anywhere in the maze of ductwork we got here, let's knock it on the head_.

It was then he heard a noise.

Something above him.

Cale looked up toward the overhead ventilation shaft which ran the length of the corridor. There seemed to be a slight bow in its thin frame as if a heavy weight was inside it. _Gotcha you little shit!_ He thought. He reached up and banged the metal of the duct twice and called out 'Helen? Is that you honey?' The bow in the metalwork was about 5 feet away.

Silence. But not nothingness.

'Helen are you hurt? You're not in any trouble honey I promise.'

Still no response.

'Helen it's me, Nolan Cale I'm a wildcatter here. Can you move?'

A noise from inside the duct.

 _Dumb kid must be terrified_. He scanned the duct and was relieved to see a maintenance hatch not more than twenty feet away.

'Helen darling, there is an access hatch not far from you, don't move I'm coming to get you, help is coming ok?'

Silence again.

He ran to the maintenance duct, and pulling out a combi tool from his trousers he reached up and began unscrewing the mesh cover. He worked quickly and soon he was able to remove the panel and throw it away. He returned the combi tool to his back pocket and pulled out a small torch from his overalls. He switched it on and placed it in his mouth as he jumped up and got his arms over the edge of the hole he had made. He pulled his head up through the gap and the light from his torch illuminated a head. A huge, elongated, nightmare head with no eyes, no ears, no hair, just skull and-

TEETH!

Gigantic, steel fangs, millions of them in a huge maw hissing right at him!

A massive hand enveloped his face, grabbed it, held tight. He tried to scream, and the pocket torch dropped from his mouth, but the sound was smothered by the silicon-skinned palm of the Alien. His terror bloomed hugely, overwhelming him, embracing him, becoming his all. He didn't care if he couldn't be heard. He had to scream. And he did. Again. And Again.

With a strength he didn't expect, the massive Alien dragged him into the darkness of the ventilation shaft in a move that was almost graceful.

The corridor echoed with a soft thumping, which rapidly faded away. And then there really was nothing but silence.


	15. Chapter 15

**DATE 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 16:31**

'We found this' said Deputy Paris, placing a torch on the Captain's desk, 'it was still on'.

'Any doubt that it's Cale's?' asked Brackett

'No sir, see here' Paris unscrewed the battery cap and turned it over to reveal where someone had scratched the initials NC into the metal on the underside. 'Things have a habit of growing legs and wandering off to other people's tool boxes, so most people mark their equipment with initials or a symbol'.

'And it was found lying on the floor, switched on, next to an open air vent on one of the sub levels?'

'Yes sir, sub level 2'.

'Sir, we may have a situation here' said Deputy Coughlin, the other member of the room. 'Two people go missing in unusual circumstances, and both by air vents', he glanced at Paris who gave an almost imperceptible nod before carrying on, 'sir, we could be looking at someone going crazy and starting a killing spree…'

Brackett ran his hands over his face 'likelihood?' he asked.

'Extremely rare but not unheard of Sir' agreed Paris.

'I need to speak to Andrews about this' said Brackett as he rose from his chair, 'but start getting ready for another search of the colony. I don't see us getting much sleep tonight'. And with that he strode out of the room towards operations whilst his brain was running at a hundred miles an hour. _Coincidence,_ it said _, nothing but a coincidence. Yeah right._


	16. Chapter 16

**Date: 24** **th** **June 2179. Time – 16:40**

Andrews was looking at schematics of the colony in his office when Brackett found him. He entered and shut the door behind him without waiting to be invited in. Andrews looked up from the blue prints with an annoyed expression on his face but Brackett's demeanour told him to keep his vitriol to himself. The physically impressive captain walked up to Andrew's desk and looked down at the superintendent, using his height to establish a position of power for the upcoming argument, a technique he had learnt from his first commanding officer when he was a wet behind the ears rookie in the justice department.

'We have another missing person, a Mr Nolan Cale. I don't believe in coincidences superintendent, and within 24 hours of that thing getting loose in the colony we suddenly have two people go missing. We need to alert the colony.'

'Nolan Cale, the wildcatter?' Andrews glanced up at the captain. 'Shit, he's one of the meanest sons of bitches in a colony full of tough sons of bitches, no way that little bastard took him out. He's probably just lost or more likely passed out in a quiet corner somewhere, it wouldn't be the first time it's happened'.

'With all due respect sir, but bullshit! We know fuck all about what this thing can do and already two people are missing. How many more are going to have to disappear before you get off your fat ass and do something about it?!'

'Watch your mouth captain, I am still your superior and you will show me the respect I am due!'

'I did'.

Andrews leaned back in his chair and stared hard at the younger man. 'And what would you have me do captain, evacuate the planet? Tell everyone there is a monster running around killing people? We are alone in the ass end of space captain, even on a good day peoples nerves are as taught as bowstrings and you want to ratchet tension up even more? Don't be so fucking ridiculous!'

'I'm not suggesting that at all, sir, what I want are five three man search teams, fully briefed on the creature and equipped to either capture or destroy it. We will be discrete but we will be prepared and we will catch this creature and find our people.'

Andrews sat in silence thinking over Brackett's proposal. Eventually he nodded his head in consent. 'Agreed, but I will pick the personnel to be entrusted with this highly sensitive information personally. If word gets out about what's going on this place will descend into anarchy in five minutes flat.'

'Fair enough' conceded Brackett, who turned and left the room without waiting to be dismissed. He could feel Andrew's stare boring into the back of his neck all the way out of the office.


	17. Chapter 17

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 18:22**

Brackett carried his three-foot shock-stick which he held tightly, trying to keep his frustration in check. He led the way for a lab assistant named Khati Fuqua and a wildcatter called Bluejay. The origin of the nickname was a mystery the captain didn't have any inclination to solve.

Bluejay wielded a large metal wrench, while Khati lugged a light mesh soil sifter he intended to use as a net. They were approaching a junction on the basement level of D-Block, beneath the wing that held the med lab and operations. The hallway was quiet and abandoned, they were all on edge and whilst not as unclean or bare as the sub-levels the lighting was as sparse casting long dark shadows. They were definitely off the beaten path, and the feeling of isolation put them all on edge.

'Scared?' Bluejay asked, his smile rustling his thick grey mutton chop sideburns.

'Get lost' snapped Khati.

'Surprised you geeks even know this part of the colony exists'

'Shut it' Brackett told them, darting his head around a doorframe and peering into a bathroom where the door had been left propped open.

'You think this thing presents a danger to the colony?' Khati asked glancing at the row of closed doors and their hidden contents. 'From the way Dr Reese described it, the creature looks like a fat snake with little arms. I don't think it's going to give us much trouble.'

'That's if we can find the fucker,' Bluejay sighed. 'Hang on a sec'. The surveyor dashed into the bathroom, searched the stalls and glanced through air vents

After the death of Russ Jorden and the following events, Brackett had brought his deputies into a room with Al Simpson and two-dozen selected colonists—some from the science team, and others from the colony staff. Dr Reese had spoken to them about the parasite, given them a rough description, and asked them to search for it as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. He also reminded them that there were still two people missing.

Somehow that had turned what Brackett would have expected to be a half arsed poke round the basement into a search-and rescue operation. Search for the creature, rescue their friends.

'Come on, Bluejay,' yelled Brackett, starting along the corridor again without waiting for the wildcatter. 'Get a move on.'

In the bathroom, a toilet flushed and Bluejay came running out with his wrench over his shoulder, zipping up his fly. Brackett scowled as he reached the next door.

He rapped lightly on it and waited for a response.

Simpson's number two, Lydecker, had gone onto the comm system and instructed everyone in the colony to shut themselves into whatever room they were in. They were to stay there until further notice, and to report anything out of the ordinary.

No answer.

"Open it," Khati said.

Brackett bristled. He needed to have a conversation with this woman about rank. But it could wait. Supposed to be a quiet post, he thought.

"Let's go," he said, turning the latch and pushing the door open.

Khati went in first, net held out ahead of her. Brackett and Bluejay followed, scanning the floor of what appeared to be some kind of stockroom. Lights flickered on as they entered, and Brackett crouched to look on the lower shelves as Khati and Bluejay did the same along aisles of lab and med supplies.

Brackett swore, peering into a vent. "We've got maybe fifteen people looking for this thing when it could be anywhere in the complex. No way are we finding this little bastard if it doesn't want to be found.'

After a couple of minutes of futile searching they headed back out into the corridor which ended in two broad swinging double doors. Hot, humid air emanated from behind the doors, along with the thrumming vibration of machinery.

'Wash-house' said Bluejay, catching Brackett's quizzical look.

The churning noises of the washers assaulted them and the hot, damp scent of industrial cleaner made his eyes sting. They moved into the vast room, where soiled clothes and linens stood in wheeled baskets below open ducts that Brackett realized must allow for dirty laundry to be dumped into hatches on the upper levels. An open doorway on the far side of that room led to another chamber, the source of the thundering machine noise.

At the broad open doorway that led into the humming, thundering room full of laundry machines, the band of hunters paused for a moment. Then Brackett nodded, and they went through. At first he wasn't sure just what he was looking at. Machines washed. Machines dried. Machines folded and stacked. But stacks of clean laundry that must have belonged in carts like the ones out in the duct room had spilled onto the floor.

White sheets made their way through the machine, stretched and creased and folded and then folded again. They spread out and moved among the various machines, the thrum and churn creating a blanket of grey noise that made it all the more vital for them to use their eyes. Brackett aimed his weapon up into the mechanical workings of the folding machine, and then moved on to the other, while Khati began to search between and behind the dryers.

"Captain!" Bluejay shouted.

Brackett followed his voice, joining him in a corner where a massive fan in the wall drew heated air out of the room and back into the colony. The grate had been destroyed, the metal latticework torn apart from within. The parasite had come through here. However it was the other object that held both men's undivided attention.

'What the fucking hell is that?!' managed Bluejay, struggling to believe what his eyes were telling him.

A large oval object sat on the floor. A very _organic_ oval object. Its surface appeared leathery in texture and was a green/brown colour which tapered to what could be described as a pair of lips on the top.

It twitched.

Both men jumped back, bumping into Khati who had been running to see what the commotion was all about and everybody screamed. Brackett breathed a sigh of relief then got out his torch, the beam from which made the surface slightly transparent. There was something alive inside.

The thing was hand shaped with what appeared to be some kind of tail. The same kind of animal that had attacked Russ Jordan.

Something else caught Bluejay's attention as the torch beam moved over the ovoid, a protrusion from the surface.

'Is that a boot?' he asked out loud, taking a step closer to get a better view.

'Stay back' yelled Brackett recognising the danger. The ovoid exploded. Propelled outward by the sudden release of energy contained in the coiled tail, the hand opened and leaped at Bluejay. The wildcatter instinctively raised an arm to ward it off, but too late. The long, sensitive fingers reached over his skull and around the sides of his head, while the thick tail wrapped itself around his neck. Bluejay felt faint as he tried to fight off his assailant. Something was pushing insistently at his lips, forcing his mouth open.

Beyond all horror now, he staggered around trying to wrench the abomination off his face. Barely getting air, the awful tube feeling like a fat worm sliding down his throat, he stumbled over his own feet, tripped and fell over backward and didn't move.

'Get a medic in here right now!' the captain barked, glancing over his shoulder at the scientist. Now was not the time for pleasantries.

Snapped out of her reverie Khati shot him a dark look but nodded and ran off to fetch help.


	18. Chapter 18

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 18:54**

The stretcher came clattering into the medical bay with Brackett trying to steer it. 'Get it off him quick, before it puts one of those things in him!'

'We will' said Dr Kominsky, she was already pulling on a pair of disposable surgical gloves. 'But you need to leave, we need this room as sterile as possible.'

Brackett nodded and stepped out into the adjoining room where Simpson, Lydecker, Mori and Russell were just arriving.

'Oh shit, another one?' asked Lydecker, 'where the fuck did it come from?'

'We found some kind of egg in the basement, then wham it hit us. I just hope we can remove it before it lays another monster inside him.'

Conversation died as all of them looked through the lab's window both fascinated and repelled by the macabre tableaux that was about to be played out before them. Inside the operating room the atmosphere was tense.

'The cutter?' Joel indicated the laser device.

'No. I'm going to proceed as slowly as possible. See if you can find me a manual blade'.

Joel moved to an instrument case, searched through it briefly. He returned with a thinner version of the cutter and handed it carefully to Dr Kominsky. She inspected the tiny device, shifted it in her hand until she had a firm, comfortable grip on the slim pencil. Then she switched it on. A beam appeared shining coherently at the far end of the surgical knife. Kominsky moved to stand opposite Bluejay's head. Working with as much control as she could muster, she moved the light-blade toward the creature. She had to be prepared to pull away fast and carefully if it reacted. A wrong move and she could easily sever Bluejay's head from his shoulders.

This creature looked a little different from the one that had been attached to Russ Jorden. It appeared to be somewhat larger than the first one and possessed what looked like some kind of armour or some kind of toughened skin and a bladed tail. It also had webbed digits and was a dark brown coloration compared to its much paler predecessor. The creature didn't move. Kominsky touched the beam to the rubbery skin, moved it a millimetre or two downward until she was sure she was actually cutting flesh. The beam travelled effortlessly down the creature's back. Still the subject of this preliminary biopsy did not move, nor did it show any sign of pain from the continuing cut. At the top of the wound a yellowish fluid began to drip, and then flow down the side of its body.

'Starting to bleed,' Joel noted professionally.

The liquid flowed onto the bedding next to Bluejay's head. A small wisp of what Kominsky first thought might be steam rose from the pallet. The dark gas was not familiar. The hissing noise that began to issue from the bedding was. She stopped, removed the blade, and stared at the sizzling spot. The hissing grew louder, deeper. She looked downward. The liquid had already eaten through the bedding and the metal medical platform. It was pooling and sizzling near her feet as it began to eat into the floor. Metal bubbled steadily. Gas produced as a by-product started to fill the infirmary. It seared Kominsky's throat, reminding her of police-control gas, which was only mildly painful but impossible to stomach. She panicked at the thought of what this stuff might be doing to her own lungs.

Outside Russell was looking more than a little scared.

'Shit. It's going to eat through the flooring.' He turned, ran for the nearest companionway. Brackett pulled the torch from his pocket and followed the head engineer, the others crowding close behind. The level 1 corridor below was thankfully empty. Russell was already searching the ceiling below the infirmary. The liquid still had several intervening levels of alloy to penetrate. Brackett turned the light on the roof, hunted, and then held it steady.

'There.'

Above them, smoke began to appear. A smudge of yellow fluid appeared, metal sizzling around it. It oozed downward, formed a drop, and fell. It immediately began to bubble on the deck. Brackett and Russell watched helplessly as the tiny pool increased in size and ate its way through the floor.

'What's below us?'

'C corridor,' announced Lydecker. 'No important wiring.' He and Mori rushed for the next down companionway while the others remained staring at the widening hole in the floor.

No one offered any suggestions as to what they might employ to catch the steady leak.

Below, Lydecker and Mori moved cautiously along the narrower, darker confines of C corridor. Their attention remained fixed to the ceiling.

'Don't get under it,' Mori warned.

'Seems to be losing some activity.' Simpson peered at the hole in the floor, hardly daring to hope. Russell and Brackett stood opposite, crouching over the dark depression in the floor. Russell fished a pen from one of his tunic pockets, probed the hole. The outer metal lining of the writing instrument bubbled weakly, looking like carbonated quicksilver. The bubbling stopped, petering out after barely marring the shiny finish. The head engineer continued to poke at the hole. Instead of slipping through, the pen met resistance.

'It's not passing more than three centimetres in. The liquid's stopped penetrating.'

Below, Lydecker glanced over at Mori in the dim light. 'See anything?' They continued to scan the ceiling.

'Nothing,' he finally replied.

'I'll go see what's happening above.' Said Lydecker as he jogged back down the corridor toward the stairs.

His first sight was of the others all crouching over the hole in the deck.

'What's going on? It hasn't come through yet.'

'I think its lost steam.' Russell knelt over the pitted metal. 'Either the continuous reactions with the alloys have diluted its strength, or else it simply loses its caustic potential after a certain period of time. In any case, it no longer seems to be active.' He started to put his pen back in his pocket, still holding it by the unmarred end. At the last moment, he thought better of the idea, continued to let it dangle loosely from one hand.

'What do you think the stuff is?' Simpson's gaze travelled from the tiny crater in the deck to the hole in the ceiling overhead. 'I've never seen anything that could cut through metal like that.'

'I've never seen anything like it myself,' the engineering chief confessed. 'Certain highly refined varieties of molecular acid are tremendously powerful, but they generally will act only on certain specific materials. They have restricted general applications. On the other hand, this stuff appears to be a universal corrosive. We've already watched it demonstrate its ability to eat through several very different substances with equal facility. Or indifference, if you prefer. The floor, the medical pallet, infirmary bedding; it went through all of them with equal ease.'

'And that damned thing uses it for blood.'

The group was in quiet reflection as they walked back into the medical centre. The sight that greeted them through the glass sent them into stunned silence.

The operating room had been turned into an abattoir. Sterile white ceramic tiles and stainless steel equipment were all now blood red. The blood had gone everywhere, on the ceiling, on the walls and pooled around two lumps of meat on the floor. Something had not only killed Joel and Dr Kominsky, but had also desecrated their bodies in a primal rage.

It had also taken Bluejay's body and its unholy passenger.

Russell stepped away from the group and was sick into a sink in the corner.

'What happened?' asked Dr Mori, his voice thick and slow with fear.

'The cameras will tell us' said Brackett pointing at the CCTV camera in the corner of the room.

'Lets go' said Simpson, 'and Lydecker, lock that door and the door to the colony, I don't want anyone to see this.'


	19. Chapter 19

**DATE 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 19:01**

They grouped around the monitor in the security station in mute terror and fascination. It had dropped out of the ceiling, man-shaped but definitely not a man. Something huge and malevolent. With a speed that something that big shouldn't be able to possess it had literally ripped the two medics apart with its razor sharp claws, grabbed the prone form of Bluejay and then both alien and engineer had vanished back into the ceiling.

'Jesus,' Russell whispered. 'It grew.'

Brackett looked blankly at his shock tube, considered it in relation to the hulking mass shown in the video. 'It grew fast. All the time we were hunting for something the size of a cat, it had turned into that.'

Simpson straightened and looked around the room. 'Whatever the fuck that is we can't handle it. Lydecker, get me Earth on the horn, I'm going to declare a state of emergency and call for the troops to rescue us. Brackett, any suggestions?'

'We should get everyone together, explain the situation then quickly gather supplies, find somewhere easily defendable and then wait for the cavalry to show up.'

'Easily defendable?' Russell said, his voice rising. 'Defendable with what, those things?' he gestured at the shock stick Brackett was holding 'you saw the size of it, it's fucking huge!'

'We do have some weapons' replied Brackett quietly. He went over to a wall and inserted what looked like a credit card into a gap in the flooring. A panel slid back revealing a rack holding six pump action shotguns and boxes of cartridges.

'How long have they been there? No one told me we had weapons on this rock!' Simpson said looking both surprised and hurt.

'They have always been there, and it was decided that only the security chief should know about them' answered Brackett breaking one out of its rack 'in case for one reason or another we needed to restore control of the facility.'

'Is that it? I don't suppose you have any machine guns squirrelled away do you?'

'Myself, Paris and Coughlin will all take one for now as we have been trained on how to use them. I don't want a bunch of panicky people running round this place with weapons they don't know how to use properly and an itchy trigger finger.'

'Agreed' said Simpson, 'start gathering people and I'll meet you in the canteen. Let's go Lydecker'


	20. Chapter 20

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 19:03**

Someone else in the colony was also watching the video of the slaughter in medical. Fingers danced over the keyboard as specific instructions were sent to a small device mounted on the satellite antenna rely. An electrical pulse fired a detonator which in turn exploded the bomb. After checking that the communications were down the individual then went back and deleted all trace of the terminal having been accessed, logged off the computer and left the office.


	21. Chapter 21

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 19:05**

Coughlin and his friend Kevin were on clean up duty in the laboratory. They worked in silence. All they wanted to do was to get the main bits of what was left of their friends into a bag and into the morgue as quickly as possible.

Coughlin was picking up the remains of the people he'd been eating breakfast with, who used to sit next to him moaning about the state of the food. Both of them were soaked up to the elbows in blood and were sweating and panting as they used big hard yard brooms to get all of the bits into the bag. The welts of their boots had dried blood in them. Their hands had ingrained blood around the nails. All of their possessions were full of blood.

There wasn't much to examine. Hell, Coughlin thought as he surveyed the carnage inside the infirmary, there wasn't much to bury. It didn't make a lot of sense. Paris patrolled the infirmary, studying the walls whilst keeping a vigilant eye on the air duct. The bloodstains diminished gradually the higher up she looked. Behind her Coughlin continued to mop up as tears streamed down his face.


	22. Chapter 22

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 20:42**

Dr Hidalgo took up a seat in a corner of the dining hall and lit a cigarette, half hoping that someone would bring up the no smoking policy so she could lash out and beat them to a pulp. No-one did. She found herself remembering Dr Komiskey, a woman she had both liked and admired. The video of the alien had left dead silence in the wake of its astonishingly swift attack. In its aftermath the colonists had resumed sitting or standing, each staring into the distance, at their neighbour, or inwardly. As usual it was left to Simpson to start the conversation.

'So now you know everything we do. There is only one question remaining, what do we do?'

Near the back of the dining hall some of the colonists had begun to whisper to one another.

'It was big,' a small blonde geologist named David muttered. 'I mean, big. And fast.'

'I saw it, asshole.' Kevin was gazing intently at his nails. His weather beaten face creased in a grimace, 'I was here. Y'think I'm blind?'

'Yeah, but I mean it was big.'

Russell rose and surveyed his fellow colonists until the muttering stopped. 'Okay, so like the boss says, what do we do now?' A couple of scientists looked at one another but no one said anything. Dr Hidalgo glanced briefly in his direction, took a puff on her cigarette, and looked away. 'Well, what does it want?' The discouraged Russell inquired aloud. 'Is the fucker gonna try and get us all?'

The cigarette eased from Dr Hidalgo's lips. 'Yeah.'

'Why don't you just shut the fuck up?' A tall heavily tattooed engineer named Moss growled. 'How do we stop it?'

'Can we seal off this area?'

'Maybe' said Simpson, 'we can defiantly barricade all the doors, the main problem seems to be that its using the vents to move around in, and there is no way we can block all those off'

'What about the video cameras? We could try to locate it that way.' That was Kevin.

David turned and looked at his neighbour 'and then do what genius, try and kill it?'

'Why not?' replied Kevin, 'we've got guns and there's only one of the fuckers so I say let's go find it and blow its head off.'

'First things first' this was Brackett, 'has anyone got on the horn to Earth and asked for some help yet?'

The lack of an instant answer got everybody's attention, and the room suddenly went very quiet as all eyes fixed on the operations manager.

'It's to do with the transmitter' began Simpson

'What's to do with the transmitter? You saying it's broken?' interrupted Dr Hidalgo 'does anyone know we need help?'

'We tried earlier.' The rooms focus shifted toward Lydecker. 'I've already checked it out. The hardwiring between here and the tower has been severed.'

'How?' demanded Russell.

'We're not entirely sure but it looks like there was a small fire which wrecked all the wiring.'

Anne Jorden's mind was spinning like a dynamo, exploring options, considering and disregarding possible solutions until only one was left. 'So what you're saying is that the transmitter itself is still functional but that it can't be utilized from here?'

The assistant operations manager looked thoughtful, then finally nodded. 'If the power hasn't been cut then yes I think so.'

'That's it, then.' She scanned her companions' faces. 'Somebody's just going to have to go out there and fix the wiring.'

The room became filled with doubtful murmuring. A young electrician named Emily Lapeer took a step forward.

'I'll go.' Quiet, matter of fact. As though there was no alternative. Simpson looked at the elfin woman and nodded respectfully at her.

'Me too' said Arturo from behind his enormous beard. Simpson couldn't remember Arturo volunteering for anything in his life.

'I'll give you some cover' said Deputy Paris hefting her shotgun. Soon a small group of six, comprising electricians, engineers, welders and computer techs set off led by Paris to collect their tools before heading out.

'Right' began Simpson 'whilst they are out getting that sorted we should make a start on getting prepared. Brackett, can you escort twenty or so people down to the stores and bring up anything you think we may need' Brackett nodded 'and Coughlin and the rest of you come with me, we need to start securing this building.'


	23. Chapter 23

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 21.19**

Paris led them out of the main lock into the teeth of an Acheron storm. The wind was gale force and full of small pieces of rock and debris which not only limited visibility to a few meters, but also forced the small group to try and shield their faces as best as they could. They were all wearing foul weather suits over their overalls along with goggles to keep the grit out of their eyes and headsets so that they could talk to each other and still keep two hands free. The lousy weather turned the most routine task into an absolute nightmare.

'Where to?' Paris yelled

'Section three' replied Arturo

'What?' said Paris. Even with headsets and microphones the wind made communication almost impossible.

'Section three' repeated Arturo, his heavily gloved hand pointing to a small rectangular tower, 'over there.'

'Okay, keep together. I don't want anyone getting lost in this storm.'

The wind was constantly swirling and changing direction which had the effect of making the meagre outdoor lighting glow slightly brighter and then dimmer like a slow strobe light. A rock the size of a golf ball went flying past Paris' face.

'How's it going?' asked a faint voice over the net from inside operations.

'Fucking peachy' was Paris's angry response 'how do you think its going you idiot?!'

'Roger' said the voice

Someone could be heard saying 'What the fuck-?'

'What?' snapped Paris

'Something moved over there, something big' said a big man named Nigelsson.

'You sure?'

'No, too much shit in the air to be certain, but I think so'

'OK, stay here whilst I check it out'

She took a few steps into the gloom in the direction the welder had pointed out. A shape slowly appeared as she advanced. Just a tractor. No, wait, there was something on it. No, another trick of the light, it was just a tarpaulin that had come loose at one corner, flapping forlornly in the storm.

The Alien suddenly sprinted out of the murk towards her.

It ripped Paris' arm off before she could even get a shot away. The bloody appendage, it's nerves tingling as if it were still attached to her body, landed on the ground five feet away. It flinched and jerked, refusing to accept death. Julisa screamed in agony as blood gushed from the stump left dangling from her shoulder, but it took her several seconds to believe that stump and bloody arm were hers. She clasped her good arm over the gushing wound as the uncaring wind stole her precious life force and sprayed it casually into the ether. Her knees gave way beneath her and she had already passed out before her head bounced of the Acheron rock.

'The bar!' shouted Lapeer trying to be heard over the shouting and confusion on the net, 'everybody head for the bar!' and started running towards a bright red neon sign that advertised the bars location.

Somebody else, maybe Arturo, began to scream in wordless horror-then in agony.

The net became a jumbled mess of questions and shouts as correct radio procedure completely broke down.

What's happening? Where are you? Can you hear me? Are you there? What is it? What's it doing? Why, where, how? Keep it out! Brace the door! No! Help me! Somebody! Help me, God, help me! God! Please, God, NO!

Then only screaming.


	24. Chapter 24

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 21.21**

Maybe because the screams were second hand through the headsets, but Al Simpson was aware of subtle nuances of terror and agony and dread that he would not have heard if he was at the slaughter itself. The cries were first shrill and piercing, sharp with disbelief and denial, then grew more hoarse and terrible, before finally becoming wet, raw, the essence of misery. These were the tortured shrieks and sobs of men and women being slowly torn limb from limb, eviscerated by a patient evil that wanted time to savour its work.

After the Alien had progressed room by room, after every luckless member of the repair party had been reduced to the wretched squeals of animals in a slaughterhouse, the victims fell silent, one by one, until the voice of a single engineer came across the net in a wail of agony.

His lonely voice rang out one last time.

Silence followed, reverberant with the memory of terror.

'God have mercy on us all' Simpson said, to which some people nodded solemnly. Others were crying, some through grief for losing a loved one or friend, some through fear for what was in-store for themselves and others cried with despair for they knew they were all doomed.

They had been in operations when the background chatter of a simple electrical repair report had turned into pleas for salvation. All work had gradually stopped as the colonists had started listening in to the radio, transfixed. Terrified.

Every colonist new everyone else on LV-426 and whilst they didn't necessarily all like each other they knew each other well enough that every victim was a person, not a name.

'We got to go help them' said Anne quietly. No-one would look at her. 'They are our friends' her voice getting louder as her fellow colonists selfishness started to make her angry 'they would have done the same for us'.

'She's right' said Morse taking a step forward with his big body, 'plus we can kill this thing right now'.

The pounding of boots on metal announced the arrival of Brackett who along with his own shotgun was carrying the other three. 'Need three volunteers for a rescue mission!'

Anne, Morse and Russell stepped forward.

'You shotgun familiar?' Three nods. 'These are magnum loads, so be prepared for the kick. With this punch and spread you buckaroos don't have to worry about aiming, and you'll stop just about anything.' The shotguns were pistol grip, pump action Remingtons and Brackett handed them out with a box of ammo for each. 'Load up, then distribute the rest of the shells in your jacket pockets. Don't leave any in the box, the last shell could be the one that saves your ass.' He looked into the eyes of his new militia. 'Dave, stay here in case it comes back'. A nod from Coughlin. 'Right, let's do this!'

As soon as the four of them had disappeared out of the door Simson turned to his assistant operations manager.

'Close and lock the doors until they return Mr Lydecker and inform the rest of the colony to do likewise, we are under complete lockdown as off this moment.'

'Yes Mr Simpson, sir'.


	25. Chapter 25

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 21:44**

Pooled with shadows, smelling vaguely of oil and grease and surrounded by the modular pre-fabricated forms of Hadley's Hope, the outside of the colony had never been a festive place suitable for a picnic, but now the atmosphere was downright sinister.

They moved out in single file with Brackett on point. He moved very slowly, looking to his right and then to his left, each of his steps deliberate. _That fuckers out here man, one mistake is all it will take._

A violent howl of wind caused a loose panel to vibrate in a nearby roof. Bracketts eyes scanned the rooftop quickly and his shoulders raised against the biting wind again, but otherwise there was no reaction from him _. Gotta be cool man. Can't let no leaky roof scare you._

Slowly they made their way over to the entrance of the bar. There were no windows and the door was shut but light was spilling out from underneath it. They paused to search for any signs of movement within. Nothing.

'Death lives here' whispered Anne to herself.

As Brackett was preparing to breach the doorway the large form of Morse silently appeared. He gave the door an almighty kick and before Brackett could say anything he was inside.

Morse's entrance to the bar was instructive and more than a little intriguing. Both hands on the weapon, arms out straight and locked, the shotgun just below his line of sight. He cleared the doorway fast, slid to the left, his back against the wall. He swung the shotgun from left to right covering the room. His performance had been professional and instinctive.

'Clear' he called.

The rest of the group piled in after him and shut the door behind them, ostensibly to keep the weather out, but also to protect their rear. They studied the bar, and in contrast to the wind outside the silence was deafening. Tables and chairs had been knocked over onto the wooden floor but what was most obvious was what wasn't there. The alien or its victims.

'Hey Morse, where the hell did you learn to do that?' asked a clearly surprised Russell.

'Eight years in the Corps' the big man replied, his eyes constantly searching for threats.

'You never said you were in the marines'

'You never asked.'

Brackett felt the need to reclaim control of the situation. 'OK, let's spread out and start looking for clues. You find anything you sing out, clear?'

It was Anne who found something first. She had just righted a table, and in doing so revealed the stump of a human arm. She gasped as she staggered back and immediately Morse was there next to her, ready to shoot. Once it became clear there was no immediate danger he relaxed, bent down and carefully picked up the arm by the overall sleeve and placed it down on the same table Anne had just put back. From the slim, delicate fingers it was clear that this was a woman's right arm. At the other end of the limb, which ended mid-way along the ulna, the ragged lump of bone suggested that it had been snapped off.

They proceeded deeper into the bar. Stains that had originally appeared perfectly in keeping with a dive bar were turning out to be made from blood on closer inspection. At the back of the bar was a corridor with the men's and ladies restroom doors on one side and a swing door that led to the kitchen on the other. All of them were shut. Brackett and Morse led the party towards the corridor. There was a lot more blood here, and it seemed to be in the form of drag marks. Drag marks that ended at the door to the kitchen. Brackett held his hand up to stop the group, then nodded at Morse, then the door, then gave him a silent three count using his fingers.

Morse's crossing the threshold technique was even smoother than before. Again he moved to the left of the door as he swept the room. Immediately Brackett followed him in, shotgun at the ready.

'Clear.'

The room may have been empty but it still stopped them dead in their tracks. Torrents of blood had splashed against the tiled walls, metal work surfaces, even the ceiling, and was still running in some places. The smell was metallic and cloying.

Where the extractor fan had been was now nothing but a messy hole in the wall and it was clear that this is where the creature had made its egress. The blood was thicker here, and smeared all around the hole, evidence of where the bodies had gone. A couple of bright red bloody handprints stood out vividly against the white ceramic tiles, as if someone had tried to prevent themselves from being dragged through the gap and failed. The implications of this were clear, not everyone had been dead when they had been taken.


	26. Chapter 26

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 23:17**

The five members of the rescue team returned to the mess. Newt and Tim came running up to their mom, obviously both terrified and relieved. 'Don't leave us again mom' pleaded Newt, her voice small 'promise'

Anne squatted down and wrapped an arm around each of her children. She realised that for the first time ever she was all they had, and flushed crimson with guilt. 'I promise honey, I promise I will never leave you two alone again. Ever.' Hot tears were gushing down her cheeks.

Brackett held two shotguns, dumped one onto the bare table top.

Coughlin gazed sadly at him. 'Where was it?'

'We just found it lying there, on the floor by a tractor,' the captain said dully. 'No sign of her.'

'What about the alien?'

'The same. Nothing. Only a hole torn through where the extractor fan had been. Right through the metal, brick, everything. I didn't think it was that strong.'

'What about the others?' asked Lydecker sombrely.

'Gone. We found lots of blood but no bodies.'

'What do you mean the bodies were gone?' Up until now Dr Reese hadn't seemed interested in the blossoming crisis of the colony, but now his eyes were bright and full of interest.

'I mean they were all gone, there was hardly a trace of them. I assume that it took them away to…y'know…'

'Was there any sign of consumption?'

'What?'

Dr Reese sighed. 'Evidence. Was there any evidence to support your supposition that they had been eaten? Cast aside bones, partially chewed flesh anything like that?'

The whole room had gone silent and were staring at him in horror.

'Oh please, don't look at me like that' said Dr Reese, 'I am a scientist and I need evidence to back up my suppositions. Plus I know I wasn't the only one thinking it.'

'You're sick Doc' said a voice at the back of the canteen.

'No, I am logical' replied Dr Reese frostily. 'For all we know it could have taken them to make up the numbers in a poker game.'

'That's my Emily you're talking about' shouted a red faced engineer called Marachuk who launched himself at Reese. He was quickly grabbed from behind and wrestled to the floor, all the while screaming 'don't you talk about Emily like that, don't you dare! I'll fucking kill you!'

'No-one's killing anyone' roared Brackett silencing the room. Even Marachuk stopped trying to escape from his captors. 'We've got enough problems already without this kind of shit. Now pack it in both of you and let's work out what we're going to do.' The people sitting on Marachuk got off him and he slowly got to his feet.

'We've been two steps behind this creature since we first brought the hand thing back.' Said Anne.

'When you brought that hand thing back' said an unknown voice.

'Who the fuck said that?! You think this is all my fault? That I wanted this? My husband is dead and you want to blame me you fucking asshole!'

'Hey, what did I just fucking say' bellowed Brackett. 'Next one of you pisses me off and you're going in the cells, monster or no monster. We clear? Now Anne, you were saying'

She took a deep breath to regain her composure. 'OK, so from now on, we assume it's capable of anything, including invisibility.'

'No known creature is a natural invisible,' Dr Reese insisted.

She glared back at him. 'No known creature can peel back three-centimetre-thick plating, either.' Reese offered no response to that. 'It's about time we all realized what we're up against.' There was silence in the room.

'I don't give a shit what it can do, I'm going to find Emily and the others' said Marachuk, 'who's with me?'

'You don't even know where they are tough guy' sneered Khati.

'Not at the moment, but I will soon'

'How?' someone snorted in derision.

'By using the colony mainframe to scan for their PDT's.'

'Will that work?' asked Brackett suddenly interested.

'I don't see any reason why not' said Simpson, 'after all it is what they were designed for.'

'OK then, sounds like we have a plan'

'I'm not staying behind this time' said Coughlin 'I'm gonna make that fucker pay'

'I'll stay' said Anne 'I can't leave the kids alone like that again, it was totally stupid of me' she looked down and smiled at the two small faces looking up at her. Brackett looked across at Morse who nodded in the affirmative and then over to Russell who was sitting on a table against the wall, head down, drinking from a hip flask. Feeling Bracketts gaze he looked up and shook his head sadly. No.

'I've got nothing better to do, count me in' said Khati.

No-one noticed the Finch brothers who were deep in conversation with two women, Neela Parvati and Mina Osterman, in a corner of the canteen, not even when they all stood up and slipped out of the room.


	27. Chapter 27

**DATE: 24** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 23:44**

The five colonists armed with shotguns, Brackett, Coughlin, Morse, Marachek and Khati, were joined by Dr Chester Ling, a short man with a square face and dark eyes who served as a surgeon to the colony, and Wes Navarro a junior medic. If there were any survivors it was obvious that they would be severely injured and that immediate first aid would be required. Both Ling and Navarro had insisted on coming along to offer any assistance they could, which had cheered up Brackett no end after the ugly confrontations that had occurred in the canteen. When they assembled at operations they were greeted by three young scientists, Genevieve Dione, Mo Whiting and Saida Warsi who had decided to help with the evacuation of the wounded. Brackett expressed his thanks to his brave volunteers. Lydecker and Simpson were operating the colony computer system with practised ease.

Everyone crowded around the main terminal. Lydecker was seated at the console fingering controls while the others looked on. A three-dimensional abstract of the colony drifted across the main screen, lazy geometric outlines tumbling from left to right, then bottom to top, as Lydecker manipulated the program. The computer knew all the answers. Finding the right questions was an agonizingly slow process.

Lydecker let out a satisfied grunt. 'Found 'em.'

'Where?'

'Over at the atmosphere processing station.' Lydecker studied the schematic. 'Sublevel C under the south part of the complex.' He tapped the screen.

Lydecker froze the colony scan and enlarged one portion. In the centre of the processing station's schematic a cluster of glowing blue dots pulsed like deep-sea crustaceans.

'How do we get over there with that thing running around outside?' asked a nervous sounding Dione. Like her fellow lab assistants, the beautiful honey-blonde had a large bag slung over one shoulder.

Lydecker adjusted the screen, reducing the magnification. An overview of the colony appeared on the monitor. 'There's one small service corridor. It's a pretty good hike, but you will be under cover and protected.'

'And fewer ambush sites' added Morse. 'Let's go.'

'Hang on a second' interrupted Brackett, 'if we go in half arsed we could all end up dead. Morse, you and I will take point. Coughlin, Khati, you two take the rear' a look in their direction received two nods. 'Marachek verticals, I don't want any nasty surprises from above or below'.

'Roger' said the big man tersely.

'The rest of you stay in the middle and keep calm. Fear is our worst enemy in there, not the creature. Remember we have it outnumbered, outgunned and have the range on it Right, everyone got a torch or headlight? Good then let's move out'.


	28. Chapter 28

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 01:01**

It was with extreme trepidation that Brackett led his team out into the claustrophobic confines of the service tunnel. The light from the torches and headlamps bounced crazily around the tunnel as nervous eyes scanned every nook and cranny for the alien. The pace was slow and methodical yet still stinging sweat ran down their foreheads into their eyes such was the stress and concentration required in planting one foot down, listening, and then raising the other. It took nearly an hour to navigate the service tunnel in this manner, but if the alien had been able to get the jump on them in the narrow corridor then they were all dead. It was with no small amount of relief then when Brackett was able to open the door and step into the atmosphere processor.

The enormous structure was labelled Atmosphere Processor One. The place was the size of a sports stadium, at least fifteen stories high and several levels deep. Its inner workings included not only the most significant atmospheric processing units, but an energy reactor providing power to the entire colony.

Inside the station was designed to be as strong and lightweight as technology would allow, the price of state of the art building materials was easily dwarfed by the immense cost of interstellar transportation. As a rule of thumb anything above ground was concerned with atmospheric processing and below ground was energy production, or anything delicate which needed to be protected from Acheron's ferocious storms. Most of the engineers who worked on the station much preferred working underground out of the vicious winds, where the heat exchangers leaked enough warmth to keep even the skinniest colonist warm.

The warmth of the sub-level caught Brackett by surprise as he, like most of his team, had never been inside the massive processor before, preferring the relative comfort of the administration block to the noise and dirt of the station. It was Marachek who was first to notice something wasn't right.

'Where is everyone?' he whispered, eyes darting nervously around.

'What do you mean?' hissed back Brackett.

'There's meant to be a permanent shift of ten people down here 24/7, keeping a close eye on the reactor. It's the most important job on the planet, everyone knows it'. Nodding heads confirmed his statement.

Brackett looked around quickly and saw the engineer was right, the place was deserted.

'The plan remains the same' said Brackett firmly. Reaching inside his jacket he pulled out a folded up schematic of the station which he unfolded and held up to the light. 'Now show me where to go'.

'We're here' said Marachek, a long dirty finger jabbing the blueprint, 'and we need to get here to this access stairwell and then down a level. That way' he said, pointing across an open space towards a broad corridor that led between two massive generators. The lights were high up on the ceiling and provided little illumination, so that the shadows were far more plentiful than the splashes of light.

'Uhh, I don't think this is such a good idea' said Dione her voice quivering, 'I think we should go back'

'Not without Em' growled Marachek

'No no no, this was a mistake. I want to go back.' The poor woman looked sick with terror, her skin was grey and clammy and goose bumps stood out on her arms despite the heat.

'Then why the hell did you volunteer to come?' enquired Navarro.

'We didn't.' Everybody turned to look at the sad face of Mo Whiting. 'Dr Reese threatened to destroy our careers if we didn't go with you'.

'Why?'

'He wanted us to collect any evidence we could of the alien and bring it back for study. He thinks it could be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time.' Whiting had the decency to look at the floor in shame.

'Our friends and family could be in serious trouble and all you want to do is get your lousy faces on the cover of National Geographic?' growled Morse.

'I don't want to die here on this rock, I just want to go home.' Whimpered Dionne.

'You selfish bitch, think of someone else for a fucking change' yelled Marachek getting right into the young blonde's face.

Brackett rounded on them. 'Maybe you assholes want to keep it down?' he suggested. 'Y'know, on the off chance it doesn't know we're coming?' That shut them up. Several of them glanced around remembering just how dangerous the alien they were hunting really was.

'Look, this is pretty simple,' Marachek said, glaring at Dione. 'We kill this thing, or it kills us and everyone else on this goddamned rock.'

Brackett nodded. 'For once we agree on something, now switch on, we're going in.'

They made their way deeper beneath the main cooling towers, moving toward the primary heating stations. Lights flickered and generators clanked. The ceiling was so high down here that the darkness swallowed what little illumination the terrible fixtures gave off. Furnaces groaned as their fires kicked up higher, pushing heat through the ducts. Brackett wiped sweat from his forehead. There was still no sign of the missing colonists. Marachek guided them to the stairwell and they cautiously ventured down until they arrived at sub level C where they were met with another surprise.

What is it?'

The captain looked back at Marachek. 'Your people build that?'

'Hell, no.'

'Then you don't know what it is?'

'I've never seen anything like it in my life.'

Something had been added to the latticework of pipes and conduits that crisscrossed the lowest level of the processing station. There was no question that it was the result of design and purpose, not some unknown industrial accident. Visibly damp and lustrous in spots, the peculiar material that had been used to construct the addition resembled a solidified liquid resin or glue. In places light penetrated the material to a depth of several centimetres, revealing a complex internal structure. At other locations the substance was opaque. What little colour it displayed was muted: greens and greys, and here and there a touch of some darker green. Intricate chambers ranged in size from half a metre in diameter to a dozen metres across, all interconnected by strips of fragile-looking webbing that on closer inspection turned out to be about as fragile as steel cable. Tunnels led off deeper into the maze while peculiar conical pits dead-ended in the floor. So precisely did the added material blend with the existing machinery that it was difficult to tell where human handiwork ended and something of an entirely different nature began. In places the addition almost mimicked existing station equipment, though whether it was imitation with a purpose or merely blind duplication, no one could tell. The whole gleaming complex extended as far back into C-level as the colonist's eyes could penetrate. Although it filled every available empty space, the epoxy-like incrustation did not appear to have in any way impaired the functioning of the station. It continued to rumble on, having its way with Acheron's air, unaffected by the heteromorphic chambering that filled much of its lower level.

Brackett looked around at the group of shaken men and women. 'We've got to be close now, let's go on.'

They resumed their exploration, their flashlights shining on the vitreous walls surrounding them. The deeper they went into the maze, the more it took on the appearance of having been grown or secreted rather than built. The labyrinth looked like the interior of a gigantic organ or bone. Not a human organ, not a human bone. Whatever else its purpose, the addition served to concentrate waste heat from the processor's fusion plant. Steam from dripping water formed puddles on the floor and hissed around them.

'It's opening up a little just ahead.' Morse glanced around. The group was entering a large, domed chamber. The walls abruptly changed in character and appearance. Dionne broke down on the spot.

Coughlin muttered, 'Oh, God.'

Morse mumbled a shocked curse. Flashlights illuminated the chamber. Instead of the smooth, curving walls they'd passed earlier, these were rough and uneven. Here were the missing colonists, entombed alive in the same epoxy-like resin that had been used to construct the latticework and tunnels, chambers and pits, and had transformed the lowest level of the processing station into something out of a xenopsychotic nightmare. Each had been cocooned in the wall without regard for human comfort. Arms and legs had been grotesquely twisted, broken when necessary in order to make the unfortunate victim fit properly into the alien scheme and design. Heads lolled at unnatural angles. Many of the bodies had been reduced to desiccated lumps of bone from which the flesh and skin had decayed. Others had been cleaned to the naked bone.

Every corpse had one thing in common, no matter where it was situated or how it had been placed in the wall: the rib cages had been bent outward, as though the sternum had exploded from behind. The colonists moved slowly into the embryo chamber. Their expressions were grim. No one said anything. This was worse than death. This was obscene.

Coughlin had started whispering 'no, no, Jesus no' over and over, on the edge of hysteria. He had found Julisa Paris.

She had been cocooned in a pillar-like structure at the edge of a cluster of ovoid shapes: alien eggs. Brackett recognized them right away. But these were all empty, open at the tops. On the floor a creature lay motionless. The fingers were clenched tight, uncannily like the hand of a dead man, which it still resembled more closely than anything else. Its leathery skin looked shrunken and dry.

Warsi suddenly appeared alongside it with a pair of forceps in her hands. 'Quick, quick!' she hissed at Whiting who was hurrying over with a stasis tube. In one fluid motion Warsi picked up the creature, which was clearly dead, had placed it in the tube and sealed it.

There was an egg and a dead face hugger in front of each corpse. Warsi had just collected her fourth dead sample when Marachek gave a cry and ran towards a particular stretch of wall.

He had found his Emily.

Again there were eggs in front of the victims.

These were still sealed.

Khati and Morse suddenly recognised the danger and ran to grab Marachek who was trying desperately to rip his beloved Emily out of her cocoon through a flood of tears.

Somehow the eggs nearest her prison became aware of his presence.

Only Khati reacted quickly enough to get a shot off before both Morse and Marachek were down with hand things attached to their faces. Khati kept on shooting eggs around her, even though no more opened up and tried to attack her. Ling came racing up with Brackett.

'Medical, everyone back to medical now!' Yelled Brackett grabbing Morse under one arm and hauling the former marine back the way they had come. 'Someone grab Dionne' he yelled. She had gone as immobile as the victims on the wall. Coughlin grabbed her and carried her in a fireman's lift and soon the group were heading back to operations as fast as their hideous cargo would let them.


	29. Chapter 29

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE. TIME- 01:10**

The loading dock was full of activity as four people hurried to load boxes onto a tractor.

The tractor was a Daihotai, an off-road vehicle designed for use on hostile, uneven and unprepared ground. A fully-enclosed cabin containing life support capability and sealed against poisonous atmospheres, biohazards and low-level ionising radiation was being loaded with extra supplies. The tractor had accommodation for five people and had been designed so that it could act as a self-contained habitat for as long as supplies lasted.

Perfect, Curtis Finch had thought, for getting away from these alien things and waiting for help to arrive. His older brother Otto had agreed on the proviso that they have some company with them. Specifically female company. Curtis had agreed and whilst the others were arguing over what to do next they had approached Neela Parvati and Mina Osterman with their plan.

Neela was a surveyor and wildcatter like the Finch's, and had slept with Otto a few times but neither of them were interested in love and kept the relationship casual between friends. Curtis had guessed that his older brother would have wanted to ride out the apocalypse with Neela in his bed.

Mina was an architect and new to the colony and for some reason Curtis had felt the need to look after her. They had only spoken a handful of times and yet something about her had caught his attention. Perhaps it was because they were two of the youngest adults in the colony, he didn't know or care, but she had been the one he had felt compelled to try and save.

The plan was simple. Load up a tractor with as many supplies as they could, get the hell away from the colony and its monsters and wait somewhere safe for rescue.

'Right, that's it' shouted Otto over the howling wind that was still raging outside, 'let's get the fuck outta here!'

Curtis helped Mina up into the unfamiliar form of the tractor, shut the door for her and then jumped into the driver's cab himself.

Suddenly a shadow, black, spidery, huge, scrabbled down the side of the dock incredibly fast and slid past the closing door as slippery as oil.

Shouts and shrieks came from inside the tractor, both human and inhuman. Blood splashed against the clear windows of the tractor. The screams intensified.

Suddenly the passenger door flew open and Otto Finch bolted out as if fired from a cannon, his face contorted in frantic terror. He grabbed the door, fighting to get out. Huge, dark hands grabbed him round the legs, hauling him down, back into hell.

The windows were all completely covered in red now, but shadows still struggled within, behind the screen of blood.

Eventually all movement within the tractor ceased and quiet returned to the loading dock once more.


	30. Chapter 30

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE, 2179. TIME- 07:56**

Their faces were pale, grey, all the colour seemed to have been drawn from their skin, their lips cold and white. Life seemed to have backed up on them, and even though they were only a few feet away they appeared to be looking back at the other colonists from a great distance. None of them talked. The survivors of the rescue mission had experienced something so awful the human brain was failing to process it.

Everybody else in the room had given them a wide berth, there was something unsettling about them. It was the eyes. They were either strained or blazed out or simply blank, and never had anything to do with what the rest of the face was doing, and it gave everyone the look of extreme fatigue or a glancing madness. Dione was smiling. It was the kind of smile that verged on the high giggles, but her eyes showed neither amusement nor embarrassment nor nervousness. It was a little insane. On that beautiful face the smile seemed to come out of some old knowledge, and it said I'll tell you why I'm smiling, but it will make you crazy.

Even when Chester Ling had come into the canteen and informed them that unfortunately both Marachek and Morse has died during the operation to remove the face huggers there had been no response, no emotion.

Only Khati seemed unaffected by what she had seen on sub level 3, and so it had fallen to her to recall what they had seen and what had happened.

So, there was not one Alien but many.

Even worse was the discovery that they took you alive to act as hosts for more Aliens.

This knowledge did have one small positive effect, the defeated, those who had taken their families and as much alcohol as they could find and gone somewhere quiet to wait for the inevitable, and hope that when one kind of brutal death or another came to them they would be unconscious, had been forced to reappraise their fate and were now willing to fight. Anything had to be better than having one of those things grow inside you.

There was only one topic of conversation. 'When are they going to come for us?' The most common answer was 'soon'.


	31. Chapter 31

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE, 2179. TIME – 08:15**

Simpson, Brackett, and Lydecker were clustered around the chief engineer in his office, peering past him at the large flat video display. It illuminated a complex series of charts and mechanical drawings.

'Okay. All right, listen,' Simpson said to Brackett. 'We're moving all of the personnel together, our best chance is to use all of our resources to secure this area, and hold out until help can arrive. I want you there protecting them.' He paused, then added, 'If the aliens come for us, you kill them.'

'Are you sure it's a good idea clustering everyone together? 'Cause if we can't keep these bastards out, I think you may just be setting the table for dinner.'

Russel tapped the screen. 'This service tunnel worries me.'

Lydecker studied the readout. 'Yeah, right. It runs from the processing station right into the colony maintenance sublevel, here.' He traced the route with a fingertip.

'All right. There's a fire door at this end. This first thing we do is seal that door.'

'That won't stop them.' Simpson's gaze roved over the plans. 'Once they've been stopped in the service tunnel, they'll find another way in. We gotta figure on them getting into the complex eventually.'

'That's right. So we put up welded barricades at these intersections'—Brackett pointed to the schematic as he spoke—'and seal these ducts here, and here. Then they can only come at us from these two corridors, and we create a free field of fire for our guards, here.' He tapped the location, his nail clicking on the hard surface of the illuminated screen. 'Of course, they can always tear the roof off, but I think that'd take them a while. By then our relief should arrive, and we'll be out of here.'

'We'd better be,' Russel muttered. He studied the layout of Operations intently. 'Otherwise this looks pretty good. Seal the fire door in the tunnel, weld the corridors shut and maybe try and use some of the heavy equipment to block off the outside doors.' He straightened and eyed his companions.

'We'll need a rotating guard rota, three eight hour shifts, twelve people per shift.' Brackett looked around the room. 'Six guards with the shotguns, two in the canteen the other four in the free fire Zones. A fresh guard replaces them after half an hour, we can't afford to have a single lapse in concentration.'

'Agreed' said Simpson, 'I'll give you a hand with the personnel shortlist seeing as you have had precious little time to get to know anyone here'.

'Appreciate it.'

'Russel I want you to organize the barricades, Lydecker I need you to give me a supply report ASAP. Any questions? Good, then let's move.'

As they filed out of the office Lydecker nearly walked into Anne Jordan.

'What's going on?' Anne asked as she approached the group. 'Brad, what's happening?'

'Superintendent Simpson and Captain Brackett both think it'll be easier to protect everyone if we're all in one place. We will have armed, and it'll be easier to seal us off from the rest of the colony, as well' replied Lydecker.


	32. Chapter 32

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE, 2179. TIME – O8:46**

A group of mechanics, surveyors, and engineers had been busy welding doors and barricading them, closing off an entire section of D-Block not far from the med lab and now most of the surviving colonists were moving to the large cafeteria where they would hole up together until help arrived.

A couple of floors below Russel and Chris Bracknall were making the fire door secure. Chris hadn't talked much since the disappearance of his daughter, _better to call it a disappearance_ thought Russell, the truth was too terrible, but the silence was worse than the awkwardness of small talk so Russell gave it a go. Turning, he put a shoulder against the fire door. 'Give me a hand with this.'

Chris helped him roll the heavy steel barrier into place. Then he unpacked the high-intensity portable welding torch he'd brought with him and snapped it alight. Blue flame roared from the muzzle. He turned a dial on the handle, refining the acetylene finger.

'Give me some room.'

Russell complied, stepping back to watch him. He began to pace, staring down the empty service way and listening. He fingered the controls of his headset nervously. 'Russell here.'

Brackett responded instantly. 'How're you two doing? We're working on the big air duct you located in the plans.'

Chris' torch hissed nearby. 'We're sealing the fire door right now.'

'Roger. When you're through, get yourselves back up here.'

He nudged the tiny mike away from his lips and adjusted the thick metal plate he was carrying so that it covered the duct opening. Anne nodded at him and shoved her plate in place. He unlimbered a duplicate of Bracknall's welder and began sealing the plate to the floor.

'What's next?' He asked as he inspected his handiwork.

Anne consulted the hard-copy printout of Russell's schematic. Maybe they could still get out of this she thought. Hour by hour. Anne decided that was the only way to evaluate their situation. Hour by hour and day by day. If Simpson and the rest of the staff could get them all settled in the canteen, Anne would give it a little time. It wasn't hope that drove her decision, not now. Her kids were exhausted— and not only the kids. Grief and fear had sapped all of the vitality from her. So for now, they would rest and put their trust in others. Tomorrow morning she would re-evaluate the situation.


	33. Chapter 33

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 14:56**

Kevin and David were scared. They had been sent outside to block the main entry lock with a couple of tractors but had made an unwelcome discovery. All of the tractors controls had been ripped out and strewn around the interior of the operator's cabs. One tractor was also smeared in dried blood and a few grisly human remains. A brief search had discovered a big earth mover and Kevin found the keys where they were usually kept, under the driver's seat.

'Thank God this is Acheron not Earth' he said to himself but out loud as the huge engine roared into life.

'What?' yelled David

'Nothin'

'Then get a fuckin move on, I don't want to be out here with those things running around!'

He threw the monstrous machine into reverse and gunned it, and was surprised when there was a crunch and a bump. He killed the power and hopped out of the cab wondering what it was he had hit, as everyone else should be cooped up in operations. As he approached the rear of the machine he could see a booted foot sticking out.

' _Oh shit, I've killed someone'_

The leg turned out to belong to Khati.

The unusual thing was that it was attached by wires.


	34. Chapter 34

**DATE: 25** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 17:33**

Russell already had Khati set up on a counter, and was running a power line from a wall outlet near the auto chef back to the quiescent skull.

'We need answers. Agreed?'

Simpson nodded reluctantly. 'Agreed.' He started forward.

The engineer fooled with the wires and the connections located in the back of Khati's head, beneath the artificial hair. When the science technician's eyelids began to flicker, Russell grunted in satisfaction and stepped clear.

Simpson leaned close. 'Khati, can you hear me?' No response. He looked back to Russell.

'The hook-up's clean. Power level is self-adjusting. Unless some critical circuits were interrupted when the head hit the deck, she ought to reply. Memory cells and verbal-visual components are packed pretty tight in these sophisticated models. I'd expect it to talk.'

He tried again. 'Can you hear me, Khati?'

A familiar voice, not distant at all, sounded in the mess. 'Yes, I can hear you.'

'What the hell are you?'

'That's against regulations and my internal programming. I can't tell you.'

Simpson stood back. 'Then there's no point in talking. Russell, pull the plug.'

The engineer reached for the wires and Khati reacted with sufficient speed to show that her cognitive circuits were indeed intact.

'In essence, my orders were as follows.' Russell's hand hovered threateningly over the power line. 'I was directed to await certain situational parameters to be met and then disable the colony communications.'

'What the hell were you doing when I hit you?' asked Kevin.

'Simply ensuring that you remained within easy reach of our new friends.'

'You fucker, you've killed us all!' Yelled Russell.

'You idiots!' sneered the Khati machine, 'your arrogance is matched only by your sense of self-importance! This was never about you or this ridiculous colony!'

'Then enlighten us, please'

'This is merely the first part of a field test, you are nothing but bait!'

'Bait?'

Khati sighed, as if she was trying to explain something incredibly simple to an imbecile.

'The company directors have known about the Alien all along, why do you think they chose this particular rock to be terraformed when there are literally thousands of more suitable candidates out there? The bio-weapons team needed to see the performance capabilities of this new creature and so you were exposed and the colony went dark.'

'This still doesn't make any sense' said Kevin.

'I'm afraid it does' said Simpson. 'What would the Colonial Administration response be to a hostile Alien life form?'

'We'd wipe the fuckers out' grinned Coughlin.

'Exactly. Heavy weapons, air support, the works. Now what's the Administration's response to a loss of contact with a colony?'

'They send a few marines out to check on…oh' said Lydecker as comprehension spread across his face.

'I see the penny has finally dropped!' taunted Khati.

'This is madness!' stammered Anne. 'They wouldn't do this to us!'

'On the contrary, it is nothing more than good research and development.'

'Thank you for that Dr Reese' snapped Simpson.

'You and the fucking Company,' Coughlin growled. 'What about our lives, man?'

'Not man.' Khati made the correction without anger. 'As to your lives, I'm afraid the Company considered them expendable. It was the alien life form they were principally concerned with. It wasn't personal on the Company's part. Just the luck of the draw.'

'These aliens: How do we kill them?' asked Brackett.

'I don't think that you can kill them. But I might be able to. As I'm not organic in composition, the aliens do not regard me as a potential danger. Nor as a source of food, as you yourself noticed over at the atmospheric processor.' She looked at Brackett. 'I am considerably stronger than any of you. I might be able to match the aliens. However, I am not exactly at my best at the moment. If you would . . .'

'Nice try, Khati,' Simpson interrupted her, shaking his head from side to side, 'but no way.'

'You still don't realize what you're dealing with. The aliens are a perfectly organized organism. Superbly structured, cunning, quintessentially violent. With your limited capabilities you have no chance against it.'

'My God.' Anne stared dully at the machine. 'You admire the damned things.'

'How can you not admire the simple symmetry they present? An interspecies parasite, capable of preying on any life form that breathes, regardless of the atmospheric composition involved. One capable of lying dormant for indefinite periods under the most inhospitable conditions. Their sole purpose to reproduce their own kind, a task they pursue with supreme efficiency. There is nothing in mankind's experience to compare with them. The parasites you humans are used to combating are mosquitoes and minute arthropods and their ilk. These creatures are to them in savagery and efficiency as man is to the worm in intelligence. You cannot even begin to imagine how to deal with them.'

'I've heard enough of this shit' said Coughlin, 'switch it off'.

'I agree,' said Anne.

Simpson moved around the table, started to disconnect the power cord and pulled the wire from the socket. 'Good-bye, Khati.' He turned his attention from the silent head to his companions.


	35. Chapter 35

**DATE: 26** **TH** **JUNE, 2179. TIME – 08:30**

Newt's eyes flickered open. She rubbed the grit of sleep from them, and blinked as she stretched into a yawn that rolled her Casey doll out of her grasp. The floor beneath the blanket was cold and hard, but somehow she'd been sleeping with her mom's jacket balled under her head for a pillow. Grimacing with disgust, she wiped drool from her mouth and realized some of it had gotten on the jacket. As she sat up, she tried to rub it off. Then it struck her where she was, and why she was there. A terrible weight settled over her heart as she glanced around at the dozens of people who had gathered in the canteen. Only a handful were still sleeping, there at the back of the room with her. The rest were sitting together in frightened conversation or standing in worried clusters.

She crossed her legs and just sat there, feeling so small with all of those people milling about. Her eyes roved over the many familiar faces and some not quite so familiar, and her heart began to quicken as she scanned in search of her mother. Her eyes darted from side to side and a terrible fear ignited inside her, burning higher and brighter with every passing second. Newt closed her eyes for a second, but in the darkness inside her head she saw her father bucking as the alien creature burst out of his body, and she heard his scream of pain… the last time she had heard—or would ever hear—his voice. How many familiar faces were missing now? Dead, like her daddy?

'No,' Newt whispered, lip trembling as tears sprang to her eyes. She rose to her feet, holding Casey against her. 'Mom?' She spun toward Tim. 'Where's Mom?' she asked.

Her breath hitched in her chest as she set off in a panic, pushing past people. Tim called her name and started after her but Newt didn't want her brother anymore, she wanted her mom. She bumped into legs and hips and backs, calling for her mother, but even as she did she caught sight of faces and tried to figure out who wasn't there in the storage area, and if they were dead. Where was Daddy's friend, Bill? Where was the cook, Bronagh, who always saved her a freeze-pop or a piece of cake?

'Mom?' Newt called.

A hand clutched her arm. Face flushed with heat and wet with tears, Newt tried to pull free but could not. She heard her name, words gently spoken, but she shook her head and turned angrily… desperately. All she wanted was her mother. Instead, she found herself looking into the brown eyes of Dr. Hidalgo. She had lines around her eyes and they seemed to have deepened, as if she had grown much older just in the past few days.

'Newt,' Dr. Hidalgo said again. 'It's all right. Listen to me. Your mother is helping to bring food and supplies to us. Just a few minutes ago she asked me to look after you when you woke, but I got caught up in conversation. I'm so sorry that you woke up alone.' The words seemed to come from far away.

'She's… she's alive?'

'Yes, dear. She's fine. I promise you.'

Tim caught up to her. 'Rebecca,' her brother said, 'what are you doing? You can't just run—'

'I wanted Mom,' she replied, wiping her eyes. That same heavy weight settled on her heart, and she felt suddenly as cold and hard as the floor she'd slept on. 'I want Dad.'

Tim nodded. 'Me too.'

Newt felt herself going a little numb. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, and again she could hear her father scream. Newt turned to her brother and slid into his embrace. Tim hugged her tightly. 'I want Mom,' she said.

'I know,' her brother replied quietly. 'She's coming.'


	36. Chapter 36

**DATE: 26** **TH** **JUNE, 2179. TIME – 10:12**

Anne walked into the canteen carrying an enormous crate of fresh fruit from the greenhouse. She'd spent nearly two hours picking fruit and vegetables with the greenhouse supervisor, Florence Riker, and a handful of other volunteers, and it had been among the most frightening times of her life despite the fact that they'd had an armed wildcatter along to watch their asses while they did the work.

Her skin had crawled the whole time she'd been in the greenhouse and even on the walk back she had been constantly expecting the aliens to attack. She had hoped the sensation would fade when she was back in the canteen, but no such luck.

She set the produce basket down and glanced around, pulse quickening at each glimpse of a barricaded door or a dark vent where bars had been screwed in.

'Mom!'

Anne turned to see Newt racing toward her, the Casey doll trailing from her left fist, clutched by its blond hair. She smiled and opened her arms, and Newt leaped into them.

'Hey, sweetie,' Anne said, the shadows in her heart retreating for just a moment. 'I'm glad you're up.'

Newt pushed off so that Anne had to put her down, then punched her mother in the hip.

'Don't leave me alone again!' she said angrily. 'You promised!'

'I was only…' Anne began, but she saw that her daughter was angry and afraid, and she cut herself off. 'Okay. I'm sorry.' She looked around. 'Want an apple?' Newt didn't want to be distracted or appeased, but after a moment's consideration she relented.

'I might like an apple,' she admitted.

'Where's Tim?' Anne asked.

'Guarding our beds'

'Then let's go give him a hand' said Anne leading the smallest of her tribe back over by the hand to where Tim was sitting in the pile of clothes and blankets that passed for their beds


	37. Chapter 37

**DATE: 27** **TH** **JUNE 2179. TIME- 06:31**

Anne jerked awake in the dark, gasping from a nightmare, her memory already splintering and skittering off into the recesses of her mind. She caught her breath, felt the clammy sweat on her skin, and then exhaled as she realized it had been a dream. Glancing around, she saw Newt and Tim sprawled on a blanket that had been thrown on the floor, jackets and sweatshirts and seat cushions for pillows, and she remembered it all. The derelict spaceship and its abhorrent cargo, and what had happened to her husband. 'Russ,' she breathed, eyes welling with tears that she quickly wiped away. She had to be stronger than that, for her kids. Others slept around them, nearly a dozen people she had known for years but who seemed distant from her now. Some of these people were her friends, others her neighbours or co-workers, but her only priorities were Newt and Tim.

'Mom?' Tim asked quietly. 'Are you okay? You made a sound.'

'Just bad dreams, sweetie,' she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. 'Go back to sleep.'

'I haven't been sleeping. I can't. Every time I close my eyes…' You see your father die, she thought. Whimpering softly, she grabbed her son and hugged him tightly.

'I know, Timmy. I know.' They'd been holed up in operations for almost two full days, waiting for help that may or may not be on its way. Food and drink had been brought to them over the course of the two days, and much of the detritus of those meals remained.

'What's for breakfast?' she asked, lifting a sleepy Newt into her arms, where the girl snuggled against her and went back to sleep. Even though she was trying to act normally, with every second she was planning. Help must be coming, she thought. But when? Would there be anyone left to save when they did arrive? She decided to track down Al Simpson and find out. Anne clutched Tim's hand in her left, carrying the sleeping Newt against her hip with her right.

She found Simpson making himself a coffee. Poor man, he looked like hell. Anne switched Newt to her other hip and fixed him with a stare as they walked towards him. She wasn't about to let him avoid her.

'Do you really think we'll be safe here in operations?' she whispered, coming in close to him so that other people wouldn't hear their conversation.

'Honestly Anne, I don't know. I'm pretty sure that if we stay separated, those things will pick us off one by one,' Simpson said. 'Our best chance is to use all of our resources to secure this area, and hold out until help can arrive.'

'How long until we get help?'

'Minimum of four weeks' mumbled Simpson, staring intently at his shoes.

'Four weeks?!' she hissed back, 'we're not going to last four days!'

'What do you want me to do?' snapped Simpson, 'I have no weapons, no resources, no communications and no transport. What the fuck do you want me to do?'

'I'm sorry Al, that was unfair of me, but four weeks? Do you think we're going to make it?'

'I have to believe so, yes. The alternative is simply too terrible to contemplate. Now excuse me please.'

Anne stepped out of the unfortunate man's way and glanced over her shoulder spotting Tim. 'Let's go, little man, breakfast.'

Tim frowned. 'I'm not little.'

'No,' Anne agreed, thinking that with his father gone, Tim would have to grow up very quickly indeed. 'I guess you're not.'

'Don't worry, Mom,' he said grimly. 'You and Newt can count on me to look out for you.' Anne bit her lip and tried not to sob. She had no fear for herself, but the thought of her children trapped with these monsters made her want to scream. Monsters we found, she thought. Monsters we brought back.

'I feel better already,' she said. 'How about you, Newt?'

'Uh, sure,' the girl said noncommittally. Newt clutched her Casey doll to her chest, and clung a little tighter to her mother.

Anne glanced at Tim, so brave and handsome… so like his father she thought, kissing Newt on the temple.

'C'mon, food' she instructed them and led them off to eat.


	38. Chapter 38

**DATE: 2nd JULY 2179. TIME- 22:09.**

There was the smell of old sweat, decaying food and private crud, and that mixing up of other smells that were common where too many people were living in too little room. A couple of the colonists had voiced the opinion that exhaustion and fear could be smelled and that certain dreams gave off an odour. Reese wondered if that was how the aliens could track their prey so efficiently. They had no visible eyes or ears, no nostrils. Some unknown, special, alien sensing organ? Someday maybe some scientist would dissect one of the monstrosities and produce an answer. Hopefully it would be him.

Talk was quiet and centred on speculation. If it was about when the attack would come, everyone chose to ignore it. If it involved relief, no matter how far-fetched it seemed, the colonists would embrace it privately while laughing it away publicly.

No-one took any pleasure from sleep anymore, no real rest. It was a commodity, it kept you from falling apart the way the food kept you from starving, but that was all. Again Reese's thoughts turned to the aliens, did they sleep? Did they dream?

Graffiti had appeared on the walls, not the big territory marking spray paint of the subways, but small written phrases that the writer might take hope from or at least leave their mark with.

' _May the Lord help this place.'_

' _Mendoza was here. 1_ _st_ _July 2179._

' _Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I shall fear no Evil, because I'm the meanest motherfucker in the Valley.'_

The silence was suddenly shattered by a reverberating boom from below. It was repeated at regular intervals like the thunder of a massive gong. Each of them knew what the sound meant.

'They're at the fire door,' Lydecker muttered. The booming increased in strength and ferocity. Audible along with the deeper rumble was another new sound: the nerve-racking scrape of claws on steel. Then silence.

For a breathless time they sat there, silent and alert, with their backs to the wall, each gazing into the shadows that encircled them. Nothing happened. There was no sound or movement in the gloom.

It was Newt who pointed it out. The wind had died. Stopped utterly. In all their time on Acheron this was the first time they hadn't heard the wind. It was disquieting, an omen.


	39. Chapter 39

**DATE: 6** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 01:33**

Breathe, Dave, he told himself. You're armed and dangerous. Even attempting to walk quietly, Coughlin thought his footfalls sounded like thunderclaps in the abandoned corridor. Normally the thought would have made him smile, but smiles were in short supply this afternoon. He had enough firepower to take on an alien, but none of it would do a damn bit of good if one of those aliens got to him before he could pull the trigger. And that acid blood… he didn't even want to think about it. It was his security shift, meaning he was in charge of safeguarding the colonists in the sealed-off wing of D-Block. He himself had been patrolling the inside of the perimeter for the past twenty minutes, checking welds and barricades and the guards. His skin crawled every time he passed a doorway or approached a turn. As he approached the next corner, he whistled the signal he'd arranged. From around the turn came the reply, the same two notes, and he exhaled and quickened his pace. He rounded the corner to find Alex Firmin leaning against the wall with his weapon cradled in his arms.

Sixty feet further on he came to Kevin and a man called Virgil, who wore a face mask as he used a hand-welder to melt and seal the bolts on the stairwell door. Virgil had started from the bottom, liquid metal sparks flying out in all directions. The metal turned white-hot where the flame struck it.

'Anything?' Coughlin called over the noise of the welder. Kevin shook his head. Virgil didn't even look up. Coughlin rose on his toes and peered through the small square windows set into the stairwell doors. Shadows and light played across the steps on the other side, but he saw nothing moving.

Approaching the next corner, he whistled the signal. Three more steps and he halted, frowning deeply. Breathing in and out, listening to his own heartbeat. He lifted the shotgun and took two steps nearer the turn. Then he whistled again. The sound that came back was a wet gurgle, followed by the slap of flesh on floor. Fuck. Quiet and swift, he hurried to the corner. Back to the wall, he peered around the edge, leading with the rifle barrel. The alien crouched above George Walder, who lay on the floor, alive but somehow paralyzed, his eyes were wide and aware as the alien dragged him toward another branching corridor. Paralysis, he thought. But he'll know it when they put him in front of one of those eggs and let a damn face hugger implant a parasite in his chest. Coughlin stepped out from the corner.

'Hey, shithead!' he barked. The alien snapped its head up. If it had eyes, they stared at him.

'Dave?' Kevin called from off to his left, back the way he'd come. Coughlin shot the alien twice in the chest. It staggered back, acid blood spilling to the ground, hissing as it ate through the floor. The acid spray hit Walder's legs and he moaned, but it could've been so much worse.

'Back off!' he shouted, taking a step forward, trying to scare it away from Walder while he was still alive. It didn't look scared. Instead, it advanced on him as if daring him to fire again—daring him to spill more acid onto his friend. Coughlin felt a nauseous twist in his gut. How smart are these things? He fired into the wall just beside the thing. From his left he heard Kevin shouting… running his way… and then Alex Firmin, coming as well, all the way from his post at the next corner, seventy yards away. The alien didn't flinch. Its mouth opened and its jaws slid out, thick rivulets of drool spilling from its lips. Coughlin wanted to scream. Wanted to throw up. But mostly he wanted to kill it. He pulled the trigger, a single shot aimed right at the centre of its head. It twitched to the left so that the shot punched through the carapace and struck its skull. It rose up as if in righteous fury, coiled its tail behind it, and Coughlin readied himself for it to charge, thinking that if he could open up with a full salvo from the shotgun, he could kill it before it reached him and maybe—just maybe— its blood would fall nearer to him, and Walder would live. The alien drove the knifepoint of its tail through Walder's skull with a wet crunch. Coughlin screamed and opened fire as the alien charged toward him. It took a couple of rounds as it lunged, and he backpedalled, slammed into the wall, and kept shooting until he blew its body apart. Its blood flew and he dove aside as it spattered and burned into the wall. Sliding onto his belly he found himself on the floor as Kevin reached him.

'Get up, Dave,' Kevin snapped. 'There may be more.'

As if Coughlin didn't know that. He scrambled to his feet and swung his shotgun up again.

'I don't know how it got in past the sealed-off door down that way, but it had to have come from that side corridor,' Kevin said, gesturing with his weapon. 'No chance it got the drop on Walder approaching any other way.'

Thirty feet along, the opening to that side corridor yawned wide. The two friends exchanged a glance. Neither of them wanted to go down there, but they had no choice. There seemed no question that the aliens knew exactly where the colonists were holed up, and were attempting to take out those who were guarding them. Or they don't care, Coughlin thought with a shiver. And however that one got in, they figure they can come and get us a few at a time, whenever it's convenient.

'With me,' he told Kevin, and he took a single step. A crash reverberated along the corridor. Firmin shouted filthy profanities to his God. Coughlin and Kevin whipped around to see Virgil on his ass with the welder in his hand, his face mask still down, almost obscenely impersonal. Another crash and the stairwell doors began to buckle on the top. The weld on the bottom, though still warm, held as the upper parts of the doors began to bow inward. An alien slammed its head into the widening gap.

'Shoot it, Alex!' Coughlin shouted as he and Kevin raced back along the hallway. 'Open fire, damn it!'

Alex pulled the trigger, spraying the doors with rounds that blew out the windows and stitched holes into the metal. The alien crashed into the doors again and the hinges shrieked, then began to give way. Virgil sat up, scrambled forward, thrust his welder through the opening and let loose a stream of concentrated blue flame. Coughlin heard the alien scream. He liked the sound.

Then the alien crashed through the doors. One tore completely free and fell on top of Virgil, knocking the welder from his hand. Its flame cut across his body as the door blocked their view of him, but Coughlin and Kevin could hear him roaring in pain. The alien ripped the gun from Alex's grip and hurled the weapon aside, even as it punched its extended jaw through his forehead. As Alex slid down the wall, dead, Coughlin and Kevin opened fire, blowing the alien apart with dozens of rounds. When they let up, the echo of gunfire ringing in their ears, Coughlin held his breath. They stared at the open maw of the ruined stairwell doors. After a few seconds they hurried past, not looking at Alex, stopping only a moment to check on Virgil, who'd ended his own life with his welding torch. They aimed into the darkened stairwell, lights flickering inside, and then hurried on to the corner that had until moments ago been Firmin's post. Together, the two friends stood guard, watching the carnage-strewn corridor for sign of any further attack. For the moment, the hallway was quiet.

'We are so screwed,' Kevin breathed.

Coughlin said nothing. Instead, he grabbed a handful of shells from his jacket and began to reload.


	40. Chapter 40

**DATE: 6** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 01:42**

When Anne heard the firing, she knew things had gone sideways. Half of the colonists flinched and scrambled away from the door. Newt clutched her Casey doll and grabbed a fistful of her mother's shirt.

The door burst open the door and Coughlin backed in, with Kevin behind him, both men training their weapons on the corridor behind them, they had sweat streaks on their faces and their eyes were wide with urgency.

'What the hell's going on?' yelled Simpson walking towards them. An icy shiver ran up Anne's spine as she saw the desperate fear in Coughlin's eyes.

'They're coming' she said matter of factly.

'The door!' Coughlin said, and Kevin set about locking it up tight, sliding crates in front as a barricade. Coughlin had the attention of every colonist clustered in the canteen.

'They're inside.'

'How?' One of the wildcatters spoke up. 'All the doors have been welded and barricaded.' He gestured at a heavy shotgun, and frowned. 'Why didn't you just blast the shit out of em?'

Anne felt like she couldn't breathe. This place wasn't secure enough! Where else could they go, where so many people could wait for rescue—where they could sleep and eat? She glanced at her kids. Tim stood with an arm around his little sister, and she thought how proud Russ would have been of him. People shouted questions at Coughlin. But when Kevin glanced nervously at the door they had just barricaded, practically vibrating with the fear that the aliens would be coming through at any moment, Anne knew there was no more time for hesitation.

'I'm going,' she said, dashing toward her children. 'Kids, come on.'

'I'm scared,' Newt cried.

'Me too, Rebecca,' Tim said. 'But we'll be okay. I'll protect you,' he promised.

'Anne, don't,' Bill Andrews said, taking her arm from behind. She shook him off.

'Don't be stupid, Bill,' she replied. 'We're trapped in here like rats.'

'Where do we go then?' Andrews demanded, turning to her.

'Anywhere, because if we stay here we die,' Anne said. She lifted Newt into her arms, and then took Tim's hand as she barged toward the freshly barricaded door.

'I'm not going anywhere,' Andrews retorted.

'Suit yourself,' Anne said.

'We're not opening this door.'

'Out of the way, dickhead,' Anne barked.

A shot echoed around the canteen.

Captain Brackett stepped forwards, smoke drifting from the recently discharged barrel of his shotgun. 'No-one is goin fuckin anywhere' he growled. 'Now get that door sealed and you, sit the fuck down down' he said to Anne.

'Who the fuck put you in charge?' demanded Anne.

'Mr Remmington here did' said the Captain, indicating the shotgun in his hands, 'and he doesn't like pussies trying to get us all killed by runnin away from a fight.' He took a second to look around the room. 'We're all gonna die. Just a case of when. Only question in life is how you check out. Now, you want it on your feet like a man, or on your knees beggin like a bitch? I'm no bitch, so I say fuck it, lets fight.'

The colonists looked at one another, each waiting for someone else to break the silence that ensued. When it finally happened, the responses came fast and confident.

'Yeah, okay, I'm in'

'Why not? We ain't got nothing to lose'

'Yeah…okay…right…I'm in'

The sudden wave of optimism was silenced by a cry from outside the door.

'Lemme in, I can see em, LEMME IN!'

Anne recognized the voice of Dunphy. He'd been one of the guards on the perimeter. So they weren't all dead.

The banging on the door became frantic. No-one could look each other in the eyes.

'HELP ME!' Dunphy screamed. "I've got three coming this way!"

Sudden overwhelming terror reduced Dunphy to the urgent, tremulous petitions of a frightened child: 'Oh Jesus Christ no, please no, help me, please!' Abruptly Dunphy's prayers gave way to screams that broke the nerve of everyone who heard them.

Suddenly something whammed against the barricaded door from the outside, dimpling it in the middle. Half of the colonists flinched and scrambled away from the entrance. A second crash made metal squeal as the door began to separate from its frame. The door shook a third and final time then smashed open. Between Coughlin and Brackett the barricade erupted in a jagged bouquet of steel. A thing rose, less than half glimpsed in the flurry of movement.

Quick impressions in bad light. Insectile. Enormous. Polished carapace. Suddenly a yawning maw revealing a secondary mouth.

As Kevin and Coughlin stepped back away from the door the army of infiltrating creatures poured nightmare shapes into the room after them. Newt screamed, as Coughlin opened fire. Anne scooped up Newt and stumbled backward. Brackett was at her side in an instant, pumping away with his own shotgun.

Screaming, Coughlin was plucked off the floor and dragged away. In an instant the apparition had appeared, and in the next instant had vanished. From the darkness of the corridor the lost man's tortured cries begged for death and pleaded mercy, for he was not at once killed, but suffered instead an attenuated death that didn't bear contemplation.

A tall man staggered, almost fell as an inhuman tail flashed past his face, wind milled his arms and managed to keep his balance until another alien leapt onto his back and took him down. In the midst of the screaming and gunfire, a strange calm enveloped Anne. Bill Andrews and Stefan Gruenwald were in the front line, strafing the aliens with shotgun rounds that blew two of them apart. Acid blood splashed Gruenwald in the eyes and the man screamed and fell to his knees. He reached up and covered his face with the palms of his hands—and then screamed louder, in a melody of anguish and surrender, as the acid on his eyes also burned through his hands. One of the aliens grabbed Bill Andrews and smashed him against the wall, breaking him without killing him. Saving him for later. Those who weren't shooting were cowering, or searching for something with which to fight back.

Anne backed up. She glanced over her shoulder at her children. Newt hugged her Casey doll so tightly that it looked like she might squeeze its head off. Tim had picked up a kitchen knife, the only weapon he had close to hand. No, she thought, the single word engraved in her mind. No. Then she saw the dark square on the wall behind her children.

'Tim! Newt!' she cried, her voice breaking. 'Monster Maze!' She saw them spin around, watched them realize what she wanted them to do. Then she turned back toward the screams and the carnage. The smell of blood and fear came at her like a storm front. One of the aliens crouched above Newt's friend, Luisa. The little girl screamed so loud the shrieking seemed like a kind of madness that tore at her throat, and then the alien grabbed her by the neck. Her whole body jerked and then went still, driven into unconsciousness by shock and terror.

Something broke inside Anne.

'Leave her be!' she screamed, running at the alien, her heart full of more hate than she had ever imagined it could hold. The alien turned, and took a step toward her.

As the other colonists died or were dragged away around her, Anne's children were screaming for her. She turned and saw that they'd pried the grating off of the vent, but they'd paused, calling out for her to come with them. The anguish in their faces carved deep into her heart. 'Inside!' she shouted. 'Get inside!'

Tim shoved Newt into the narrow duct—much too small for one of the creatures—and then began to climb in behind her. Anne heard a low hiss. She could practically feel the alien as it reached for her. Russ, she thought. I'm sorry. She turned just before its hand punched her in forehead, knocking her to the floor unconcious.

Newt heard her brother scream for their mother. He scrambled, banging against the inside of the duct as he climbed out again.

'Timmy, no!' She grabbed his t-shirt but he tore free and turned toward her, furious tears streaming down his face.

'Go, Rebecca!' he roared. 'Don't wait!' But she watched him turn, watched him run over and bend to where their mother had dropped. 'I'll save you, Mom!' Tim yelled. But he couldn't. It was too late for that. Too late for their mother. Too late for Tim. Numb, Newt turned away, but still she heard the scream—the last sound her brother—her best friend—would ever make. She felt the alien coming for her and hurled herself deeper into the duct, crawling away as fast as possible. Monster Maze, she thought. But now these ducts were the only place the monsters weren't. She knew them better than anyone, but she'd never crawled around inside them alone. Alone. The word echoed in her head the way her movements echoed along the ducts. All alone.


	41. Chapter 41

**DATE: 8** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME- 10:45**

Newt didn't recognise the man sat eating in what remained of the canteen. She had a good view of him from her hiding place in the vent shaft and was sure he couldn't see her or have any idea that she was hiding there in the shadows. He was tall and looked strong, with ice-blue eyes which for some reason reminded her of a pig. He was an ugly man, and the ragged scar that crossed his face didn't do a thing to improve his appearance. Neither did the fact that he was covered in blood.

His name was Grice, a wildcatter, and he was one of the few survivors of the alien attacks. The aliens had attacked, grabbed as many colonists as they could carry and disappeared. The second attack took even more colonists than the first and the resistance finally broke. The survivors, those at least who could, fled to try and hide wherever they thought was best. A handful had remained in the canteen, too shocked and too mentally broken to move, and when the aliens came back a third time they were removed with a gentleness more akin to a nurse than a predator. Newt hadn't seen another living soul since then until the surprising re-appearance of the ugly man.

The blood on Grice's jacket and face had dried and begun to flake off. He ate quietly, spooning up the crispy cereal. Once, he paused to add some sugar from a bowl. He stared straight at the dish but did not see it. What he saw now was very private and wholly internalized. Newt didn't have any way to gauge the passage of time but hours must have passed and all he did was eat cereal. Newt was tempted to let her presence be known, but the animal part of her brain told her that something was wrong here, even if she didn't understand what.

There was movement in the corridor, and then a man cautiously entered the room. It was a junior scientist named Woodley. As he started toward the first table he caught sight of Grice and stopped.

'Grice?' he finally murmured. The wildcatter at the table looked up and smiled. Blankly. His face and hair were spotted with matted blood, his eyes in constant motion as they repeatedly checked the ventilator covers, the ceiling, the door. 'Is it safe in here?'

Grice began to laugh and cry simultaneously. 'Not a chance, no, no, not a chance!'

Woodley studied the quivering remains of what had once been a human being. Not much of a human being, true, but human nonetheless.

Woodley walked in closer, searching his fellow survivor's face. 'Pull yourself together, man. Talk to me. Where are the rest? Where are Simpson and Brackett?'

Grice licked his lips. They were badly chewed and still bled slightly. 'Simpson?' he whispered, his brow furrowing with the effort of trying to remember. 'Brackett?' Suddenly his eyes widened afresh and he looked up sharply, as if seeing Woodley for the first time.

'Hey, you okay, man? You look weird'.

'They're dead,' Grice announced solemnly. He was watching the new arrival closely now, in a way that Woodley found disquieting. 'Hey, check this out man, come see what I found'.

'What?' Woodley was dubious about Grice's discovery, but also curious.

'This' said Grice as he brought out the adjustable wrench he'd been hiding behind his back and used it to mash the skull of the man coming toward him. Grice was much faster and far more agile than Woodley imagined, but then this time he was driven by something a good deal more powerful than muscle alone. Woodley went down under the assault, his head and face bloodied. It was all over very quickly.

'Fuckin robot' Grice yelled as he pulped Woodley's head beneath an avalanche of blows, 'think you can fool me?! I know you're all fuckin robots!' Despite Grice's accusations, it was Woodley's very organic and human brain that was leaking from his smashed skull onto the floor.

Newt watched all this in horrified silence as Grice took his wrench and left the canteen, smashing everything in his path as he went. She heard the sounds of destruction recede and finally stop. She knew two things, one that she had to move to somewhere safer, and two that she should not trust anyone in the colony as they were no longer the same people anymore.


	42. Chapter 42

**DATE: 10** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 17:36**

Sketch had decided to hide out in the colony's subterranean greenhouse, a place, in theory, with an inexhaustible food and water supply. The greenhouse was actually just an enormous concrete room full of pipes, bags of chemicals, rows of tables covered in fruit and vegetable planters that lined the perimeter as well as the central area and in the ceiling the large halogen lamps that provided the plants their light and warmth. Sketch hoped that the smell of earth and growing things mingled with the chemicals would hide his odour from the Aliens, if that was indeed the sense they used to hunt, as well as deciding not to go to the toilet in the room for exactly the same reason.

He had tried to move as little as possible since he escaped from the canteen, spending most of his time dozing on a bed he had fashioned out of empty sacks and his coat in the darkest corner under the planters he could find, however the time had now come to go, and so with great care and trepidation he began to head out to the toilets at the far end of the corridor.

A muffled clanging broke the silence elsewhere in the colony and he froze. The cold acoustics caused the sound to resonate along the walls of the corridor, lingering until the initial hard metallic quality softened into an eerie, whispery ringing like the voices of summer insects.

He stood still and vigilant until well after the final echo of the noise faded.

The corridor, which was about fifty feet long and perhaps eight feet wide with unpainted concrete walls and floor, remained empty. To his left the corridor wall was unbroken. Along the right side lay three rooms waiting behind a series of unpainted stainless steel doors without markings of any kind before disappearing round a corner to the right.

The longer the quiet lasted, the more it seemed bottomless. Soon it was an abyss into which he imagined himself drifting down, down, like a deep sea diver festooned with lead weights.

He listened so hard that he was half convinced he could feel the fine hairs in his ears vibrating in his ear canals. Yet he could hear only one sound, and it was strictly internal: the thick, liquid thud of his own heartbeat, faster than normal but not racing. He was about to move on when a shiver of superstitious dread passed through him. He felt a presence, an aura, like a pressure, looming in front of him, chilling his blood and marrow.

Now his heart was racing.

Slowly he backed away, back into the greenhouse as a nightmare creature rounded the corner. He got low and retreated back into his dark corner and covered himself as best he could with the empty sacks. As he peeked out from under a sack he could see the Alien at the end of the corridor through the legs of the germinating tables above him.

The alien was at least eight feet tall, and powerfully built with a muscular upper torso, the two forearms held tightly alongside the body, the claws dangling.

The alien was alert; as it came forward, it appeared to be looking from side to side despite having no visible eyes, moving its head with abrupt, bird-like jerks. The head also bobbed up and down as it walked, and the long straight tail dipped, which heightened the impression of a bird. A gigantic, silent bird of prey.

The alien paused at the entrance to the greenhouse and he saw the monster silently yawn, exposing the small mouth it seemed to have instead of a tongue. The alien stared forward again, jerking its head from side to side moving directly toward Sketch.

Sketch found the silence terrifying. Something that big had to make some kind of noise didn't it? Now he could only see its strong legs and tail, the rest of the animal hidden by the tables of seedlings being prepared for planting.

The alien was now just a few feet from him, Sketch could see the small twitches in the muscles of the flanks and the crusted blood on the claws of the feet.

Suddenly the clanging sound began again, only this time much closer. The alien jerked its head, and seemed to look at the ceiling. Sketch nearly gasped with fright. His body was rigid, tense. He watched as the alien head moved, scanning. Suddenly it turned on its heel and was gone, its footsteps receding down the corridor.

Sketch looked at his hands, they wouldn't stop shaking.


	43. Chapter 43

**DATE: 15** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 15:56**

Gemma Rowan was a moving target survivor subscriber. As a technique for staying alive it seemed to make as much sense as anything else that she could think of, and it made her feel safe and in control, but it was only an illusion. Mobility was just mobility and it saved lives or took them all the time. It was mentally exhausting, was the room you were about to enter a bad room, the wrong room, maybe even the last room, and whether you'd made a terrible mistake this time or not, but it would be her decision that kept her alive or not and that was something at least.

Today she was on the hunt for food, and after the massacre in the canteen which she refused to go back to, that meant one place. The storage bay. Located on the ground floor it was a cavernous featureless room with two giant shutter doors that led out to the landing pad, so that the large supply containers could be easily brought inside. At the rear of what some of the locals referred to as the food hangar were four large freezer rooms, where that most precious of commodities, meat, was kept.

She was almost half-way across the storage bay when she heard a sound that stopped her dead. It was a faint, sudden gasp, like air escaping from a tyre. Coming from somewhere at the back of the bay, near the freezers.

Gemma listened intently, but all that came back at her was thick silence and for a few seconds she wondered if she'd imagined it.

There! One of the metal floor panels had creaked. Someone was creeping around back there and Gemma tensed. It was either another survivor looking for food or... But the creaking had stopped, and there was nothing coming from back there now.

Gemma stood absolutely still in the storage bay, her heart was beating loudly and her mouth was dry. Taking a deep breath she slowly advanced towards both the freezer rooms and also the sound. She entered the small corridor which led to the four freezer rooms, and immediately noticed that one of the doors was ajar.

Bracing herself, she called out, her voice just above a whisper, but sounding incredibly loud as it cut through the dead silence.

No answer.

'Hello? Is anybody there?'

Still no answer.

She took a step forward, then another, before pausing and taking another deep breath, and even that seemed loud in the silence. Everything was suddenly utterly still. She kept walking towards the ajar door and stopped a foot away.

She couldn't hear anything behind the door. Not even a breath. It was as if the whole world had stopped moving.

Reaching out a hand that was ever so slightly shaking, she gave the door a push, and it creaked open a few inches more, Gemma caught the pungent stink of blood and faeces, and saw the naked, bloodied foot sticking out on the floor. The foot belonged to a child, small and dainty.

Was that the noise she'd heard when she'd first come into the storage bay? The final gasp of a dying child?

If so, it could only mean one thing. An alien.

The monster pulled the door open violently, fresh hot blood dripping from its hands and mouth onto a pair of old filthy work boots that straddled the pitiful sight of a small boys corpse, the throat severed deeply by a jagged incision. Gemma knew this monsters name, Grice. As she stood there in shock at what she saw Grice spat a lump of bloody meat which had been chewing on from his mouth and grinned at her, his teeth red with blood.

Her survival instincts kicked in and she span on her heel and ran as fast as she could away from the ghoulish form of Grice. Grice was taken by surprise by this sudden explosion of pace and Gemma had taken five or six steps and was nearly at full speed before his own brain kicked in and he stumbled forward before accelerating himself to catch her.

She was running now on pure pounding adrenalin, behind her she could hear the thump of Grice's feet as he sprinted along in her wake. Gemma imagined that she could hear, almost feel Grice's heavy breath on her. Crashing through doors she ploughed headlong into the colony, running like a lunatic but she was losing ground and knew it.

A shot of pain flashed through her shoulder as she pin-balled down another corridor, totally lost in her fear and virtually fell into a tiny office, desperate to break line of sight with her pursuer. She quickly slammed the windowless door shut and heard it click. Closed. She braced her back against the steel desk and her feet against the door and tried to catch her breath whilst trying to remain as quiet as possible. Her chest heaved as she waited for the door to come crashing in and for death to cross the threshold.

Any second now.

She managed to bring her breathing under control. The door remained in place. She listened for the sound of her hunter in the corridor. Nothing. Slowly she got to her feet and opened the door as quietly as she could. The corridor was deserted. She stepped out and listened for the sound of receding footfalls. Again nothing, her pursuer had seemingly vanished into thin air. Still shaken up by the whole encounter she crept back into the office and reclosed the door. She was suddenly overcome with exhaustion and without really wanting to fell into a fitful nap in which obscene things chased her and did obscene things to her.


	44. Chapter 44

**DATE: 16** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 06:14**

She woke up cold, in the dark and alone. For a couple of minutes Gemma didn't move as she tried to separate reality from fiction in her own mind, a tough job considering how skewed her reality had become.

It was an unusual sound that caught her attention, a very human sound. The sound of a toilet flushing. Only a human would have made that sound, but before she could become too excited the memory of her last human encounter swam to the front of her mind and extinguished it. But what if it was another child? Surely it was more likely that a child would flush a toilet out of habit wouldn't it? The balance of probability convinced her to go and investigate.

Slowly she opened the storage room door and was glad to see that the corridor was as deserted as she had hoped it would be. She needed a few seconds to re-orientate herself after her directionless mad dash from the storage room being less familiar with this part of the complex than any other but soon she was satisfied that she knew where she was and also where the nearest toilet was.

As quietly as she could she started off along the corridor, every sense working overtime. Her body pumped adrenaline into her bloodstream making her feel temporarily nauseous. If her memory was correct there was a male and female toilet just ahead and on the left, primarily for the use of the tractor drivers but also for the "moles" as they were affectionately known, the men and women who worked in the greenhouse and water recycling facilities buried into the rock of Acheron.

She made it to the toilets without incident, and this time decided to go in fast and quick to surprise whoever was inside, confidant that they were human.

She could hear the tank in the men's toilet dripping as it finished refilling so that was the one she went into first. She was proven right in that it wasn't an alien but a human using the room. She was wrong in that it wasn't a child but a man.

Grice produced a killer smile, a warm and intense smile that had apparently charmed at least one child to its death as he finished buttoning up his trousers.

He took a step towards her.

'Stay back' she warned.

He took another step and reached one hand out to her, palm up, as if in a plea for an emotional connection. She backed away from him.

Still approaching, he said 'Give me a hug, and let's sit down and talk about all of this.'

Gemma backed out into the corridor but he kept coming, hand out.

'Let me show you the power of discussion, of dialogue and of love.'

This time Grice moved first and leapt at Gemma, tackling her to the ground with a loud clang and before she could recover he was on top of her. A punch to the left of her temple blurred her vision and a simultaneous punch to the gut removed all of the oxygen from her lungs. She was already falling unconscious when the third and final punch caught her just above the right ear and finished the job. Still not satisfied with his work Grice grabbed her hair with his hand and began yelling.

'You fucking whore bitch!' he screamed whilst smashing her head against the cold metallic floor, four times, five times, a small stain forming under her head, hair stuck to it. Engrossed in his work he never heard his assailant creep up on him behind. Indeed when the spade hit Grice on the back of the head he keeled over with a look of complete surprise on his face.

Sketch rolled the prone form of Grice off the woman who was thankfully still alive. He recognised her as one of the techies who kept all the computers up and running. He was still wondering what he should do next when she opened her eyes with a groan of pain. Then she started and threw a punch at the figure leaning over her. She caught Sketch by surprise and delivered a painful blow to his jaw which caused him to yell out, but didn't follow it up as she realised that this was not the child murdering maniac who had tried to kill her.

'Jesus, I'm sorry' she apologised as she sat up, 'thank you'.

'Anytime. Who's the crazy fucker?' he asked gesturing to the prone form of Grice with his head.

'A murdering sick fuck called Grice, I found him…' she paused, her voice small, clearly disgusted '…I found him eating a child.'

'Fuuuuck' whispered Sketch. He looked over at Grice's unconscious form with disgust before turning his attention back to Gemma. 'Hey, I know you, don't I? Miss Runyun?'

'Rowan, Gemma Rowan. I'm sorry but I can't remember your name.'

'Just call me Sketch, everyone else does….' His voice tailed off as he remembered his dead friends.

'Sketch? Why do I know that name? Wait, weren't you the one who vandalised the Colony sign before the visit of that Weyland-Yutanti big wig?'

Sketch grinned 'Yeah that was me, and the stupid nickname just stuck'. His smile vanished. 'Shit, we should get out of here, every fucking alien on the planet is gonna be he soon after all the noise we made'.

Gemma's green eyes hardened. 'Not before I finish something first', she looked meaningfully at Grice's body. 'Hand me that spade'.

'Why, what are you going to do with it?' asked Sketch, a little scared at the sudden anger Gemma was showing.

'Give!' It wasn't a request but an order. Sketch numbly handed the spade over and looked away. He heard a few meaty sounds and then a loud crack, followed by another.

'OK then Sketch let's get the fuck outta here, I assume you have somewhere we can go?'

'Er, yeah, kind of. The greenhouse. Follow me.'

They jogged off leaving the corpse of Grice behind. Whatever demon had occupied his mind was now free on the floor along with the rest of his brains.


	45. Chapter 45

**DATE: 16** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 06:17**

The sound grew nearer. A kind of metallic bouncing noise. Newt recognised the sound immediately and drew back into the ventilation shaft pressure release bubble she was hiding in and held her breath, repeating instructions to herself in her head.

 _Don't move. Don't speak. Don't breathe. Don't move._

Along the corridor came a full sized alien. Dark, massive, malevolent.

Inside her hiding place Newt closed her eyes and tried to think happy thoughts, of the good times she and her family had spent together, but instead all she could see were their agonised faces as they were taken from her. Instead she remembered an old nursery rhyme her mother had taught her and sang it to herself repeatedly, trying desperately to ignore the monster outside.

When it reached the vent and was level with Newt it suddenly stopped. It stood quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. It made a sound like someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side.

Newt knew her life hung by the slenderest of threads, one false move and her mother's sacrifice would be for nothing. Time dragged on forever, seconds became hours, minutes turned into years.

Then just as she was certain the creature was going to reach into the vent and grab her, the alien turned and moved on, walking slowly at first, and then breaking into a quick trot, its motion vaguely birdlike.

Newt had been witnessing similar behaviour for the last couple of days, individual aliens stalking amongst the shadows of the colony, searching for survivors. Far off she thought she heard something that sounded like a scream but it was too faint to tell.


	46. Chapter 46

**DATE: 16** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 09:44**

They were huddled together in Sketch's corner at the back of the greenhouse. Tired and scared they had just sat in silence processing the most recent events in their tortured lives. It was Gemma who eventually broke the silence.

'Let me get this straight. They took the ones they didn't kill, carried them over to the processing station, to serve as hosts for more of those spider things, which would mean lots of those things, right? One for each of us. Over a hundred, at least'.

'Yeah that makes sense,' Sketch wearily agreed.

'But these things, the spider things, come from eggs. So where are all the eggs coming from? I don't think they had time to haul the eggs from that ship back to here. That means they had to come from somewhere else.'

'I don't want to fucking know' said Sketch

'Any ideas, bright or otherwise?'

'No so change the channel will you.'

'Aren't you even a bit curious about these things?'

'Only in regards as to where they are right now and how are they going to try to get me. After that I couldn't give a shit.'

'Oh' said Gemma, sounding disappointed. 'So what have you been doing down here?'

'As little as possible, that was kind of the point. Why what were you up to?'

'Surviving, same as you.'

'Ah. Don't suppose you found any other survivors on your travels?'

'Nope, not a sign of anyone until I ran into that maniac upstairs. I haven't even seen one of those aliens since the attack.'

'I have'.

'Where?'

'In here.'

'When was this?' gasped Gemma, suddenly alert.

'About a week ago maybe? I don't really know as it's so hard to keep track of time down here.'

A long pause then 'Do you think we will be rescued?'

Sketch looked into her brown eyes and saw the fear there, building up, about to overwhelm her.

'Maybe' he said as reassuringly as he could, 'I mean why not? We've lasted this long why not a bit longer? Maybe they've given up looking around here and gone somewhere else.'

'Yeah right.' She scoffed. 'First thing I'm going to do when I get back to Earth is find the Company advertising guy and deck him, as THIS wasn't in the brochure.'

Sketch chuckled as he rubbed his jaw where he too had been the target of Gemma's wrath. 'Deal, you have to survive this so you can go back and give the advertising department a good kicking!'

They both laughed quietly, something they hadn't been able to do for such a long time.

'What about you?' asked Gemma, 'why are you going to survive this and get home?'

'Because I want a beer out of a proper glass, not one of those stupid plastic beakers we have to use out here.'

'I'll drink to that' said Gemma, raising an imaginary glass in a toast.

As with everything on this godforsaken planet, the pleasure was short lived as the unbearable reality of the situation bore down on them again.

They settled down to wait.


	47. Chapter 47

**DATE: 16** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 10:11**

The food had run out and it was obvious that they would have to risk a scavenging mission.

Something in the shadows of the ceiling was watching them with great interest as they cautiously made their way out of the greenhouse and into the corridor. It was an alien, of course, drawing out the game of stalking just like cat-and-mouse. With victory assured they seemed to be taking the time to savour the thrill of the chase, as if testing their own skill and mastery over this interesting creature man. But also like the cat they only appeared to be playing. In their minds, their emotionless brains, they were simply honing their wits and hunting tactics. It dropped noiselessly to the floor and synchronized its own movements to match theirs precisely, and its sounds and silences were timed to the beat with the humans. When Sketch stopped to listen, the alien froze at exactly the same instant. Satisfied the humans moved on, and the alien resumed its prowl, continuing to match the human's movements, footfall by footfall.

Suddenly, alerted to the sense of a suspicious presence they froze, staring along the corridor to where it turned the blind corner. Sketch's instincts told him something was wrong but he couldn't for the life of him work out what it was. From behind Sketch the alien's tail flicked out. Its barbed end slashed easily through the man's upper arm, severing it above the elbow. The bloody appendage, its nerves tingling as if it were still attached to his body, landed on the ground ten feet away. It flinched and jerked, refusing to accept death. Sketch screamed in agony as blood gushed from the stump left dangling from his shoulder but it took him several seconds to believe that the stump and bloody sleeve was his. Blood had sprayed all over Gemma and she was already running. He jammed his good arm over the gushing wound and bolted too. He was running now on pure pounding adrenalin, his wounded arm spraying blood as he tried to run. Behind him he could hear the thump of the alien's feet as it jogged along in his wake. He didn't seem to realize that the alien was enjoying the chase and savouring the final confrontation.

The alien didn't have long to wait.

Sketch was already beginning to feel very shaky, and this time a stumble into the wall was enough to knock him over. He heard the alien approach as though he was underwater, and the throbbing wetness was pumping out again. Quite easily and peacefully he fell asleep and bled to death. The alien gently picked up the still warm corpse and took it back to the nest where it would serve as food for the hive.


	48. Chapter 48

**DATE: 16** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 10:12**

Covered in the stinking hot blood of her friend Gemma had run aimlessly down corridors until now, exhausted and spent she found herself in front of an unfinished section of corridor, a part of the future of Acheron that would never be realised.

Suddenly, a cold chill shuddered down her spine and her body stiffened. She sensed it the minute it appeared, somehow knowing the exact moment when she was no longer alone. Part of her wanted to dismiss the sensation as imaginary, but the part of her that had kept her alive so far knew better. Gemma stood stock still, refusing to show fear, refusing to admit defeat. She frantically searched for an escape route but there was none. She had been trapped like a fly in a web.

The Alien drew back its thin lips in a chilling snarl, exposing the primary set of silver teeth. Ropey saliva dripped from its maw as it raised its spidery hands to pounce. Fingers spread, clutched, wrapped completely around the technician's throat and crossed over themselves. Gemma shrieked, both hands going reflexively to her neck. For all the effect her hands had on them, those gripping fingers might as well have been welded together. The Alien's arms and tail surrounded Gemma like a lover, holding her close, holding her secure. Gently then, the beast freed her mouth, observing Gemma curiously, as Gemma's lungs powered her frantic screams of total, utter terror. The creature seemed to smile, but like the Cheshire cat, all Gemma could see were those terrible silver teeth, grinning. Grinning at her. Gemma screamed some more.


	49. Chapter 49

**DATE: 27** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 09:50**

How long had her life been like this, a week, a month, forever? She could remember nothing but feeling constantly tired. That was the overriding impression: not fear, although she felt a lurch of terror every time she saw one of the aliens stalking around the colony but endless nerve-sapping weariness. She got up tired and napped frequently but would often go to sleep and be unable to remember anything definite about the day.

The utter fatigue that had overtaken her at breakfast had passed and been replaced by an edgy nervousness. She recognised the feeling: it was her overworked body preparing for another day of survival, death and terror. It was cranking itself up for the usual cruel and extravagant demands of being hunted by the perfect organism. Another physical and emotional battering was on the way, and her body didn't like it.

Newt noticed her sense of edgy nervousness fading. The old exhaustion was creeping back. Even her eyes had stopped trying: objects lapsed into soft focus in the room she was observing. A door banged somewhere nearby and she blinked, instantly alert again. Was that...yes voices! Human voices! It had been so long since she had heard or seen another human being that she was tempted to jump down from her hiding place in the vent and try and locate the source of the voices instantly, but the part of her that had kept her alive all these long weeks reminded her of the crazy man in the canteen and counselled caution.

She took a long and circuitous path back to her den near the medical centre and was nearly there when she heard the voices again. They didn't sound friendly. She crept into the corridor her hidey hole was in and saw them, soldiers with guns! She panicked and bolted for the entrance under the flooring as the world erupted in noise and light. She heard angry shouting behind her as she scrambled for the tiny vent that would provide her with safety but suddenly a hand snapped out and strong fingers had locked around her ankle. She instantly pivoted in the confined space and bit the hand as hard as she could, eliciting a howl of pain from her would be captor. She reached the ventilation duct whose grille had been kicked out and scrambled inside, wriggling like a fish.

She could hear someone in the vent behind her and so as she entered her nest she span and tried to lock the metal hatch behind her. The woman chasing her slammed it open before she could latch it and she backed away as far as she could, trying to edge around to the smaller coolant pipe that she knew the adult wouldn't be able to fit through. She turned and dove, but so did the woman who managed to get both arms around her, locking her in a bear hug. Silently she struggled to break free.

'It's okay, it's okay. It's over, you're going to be all right now. It's okay, you're safe.' Said Ripley.


	50. Chapter 50

**DATE: 27** **TH** **JULY, 2179. TIME – 15:09**

Gemma felt a hand on her forehead and opened her eyes to see a female soldier staring at her.

'Top!'

'What?'

'Top get over here we've got a live one! You're going to be alright, you're going to be alright'

She tried to speak but could only manage a whisper. The soldier leaned in closer.

'Please—k,kill me.'

'Just stay calm, we'll get you out of there. It's going to be alright, give me a hand to get her out of here. Convulsion!'

Wide-eyed, the soldier stumbled back. Gemma's stomach began to move unnaturally. From some final reserve she summoned up the energy to scream, a steady, sawing shriek of mindless agony.

'Flamethrower!' a voice said as her chest erupted in a spray of blood. From the cavity thus formed, a small fanged skull emerged, hissing viciously. The black soldier's finger jerked the trigger of the flamethrower and heat and light filled the chamber, searing the wall and obliterating the screaming horror it contained. What wasn't carbonized by the intense heat melted, the wall puddled and ran, pooling around their boots like molten plastic. But it didn't smell like plastic. It gave off a thick, organic stench. Everyone in the chamber was intent on the wall and the flamethrower. No one saw a section of another wall twitch.


End file.
